


eS ener Week and 


NE Diet a ak 
— The Centennial Exercises 
eas of t GROVE CITY COLLEGE 

: June 13-16, 1926 










<a OF PRINGE > 
DEC 20 1926 

e: ° 
“Ch ogigas sew 






Commencement Week 


AND THE 


Semi-Centennial Exercises 


OF 


Grove City College 


JUNE 13-16, 1926 


ADDENDA 
CENTENNIAL NUMBER 
GROVE CITY COLLEGE BULLETIN 








Published Monthly by Grove City College. Grove City, Pa. 








Vol. 18: DECEMBER, 1926 Number 12 





Entered as Bae Class Matter at the Aes Office at Giove City, 
. Under Act of July, 189 





BOARD OF TRUSTEES GROVE CITY COLLEGE 


Mrederices hus Babcock.) tay ns ie, ve hla Ve lee!" President 
Reverend W. L. McEwan, D. D. - - + + Vice President 
Vaan ee MICKA y 2 Cees ty 2) Cor eo? eta NPA = Wt | Secretary 
PU ETArSha WR yes oer ante beet AlN a Vim cd TEASILFET 
FREDERICK R. BABCOCK Kev. W. L. McEwan, D. D. 
M. L. BENDUM M. L. McBripe 

HENRY BUHL, JR. WILLIAM S. McKay 
WILLIAM H. BURCHFLELD Joun Marsan 

W. L. CLAUSE 

WILSON A. CAMPBELL Dr. C. C. MECHLING 

H. J. CrawForp Harvey A. MILLER 
RAYMOND Cross EDWARD O’NEIL 

J. S. CRITCHFIELD JoHN G. PEw 

Dr. E. J. FITHIAN J. Howarp PEw 

ROBERT GARLAND REVAD GAL PLATT DD: 
Mark W. GRAHAM WILSON A. SHAW 

JAMES H. HAMMOND HAMILTON STEWART 
WILLIAM ALBERT HARBISON VERNON F. TAYLOR 

E. B. HARSHAW A. M. THOMPSON 

WEIR C. KETLER WILLIAM V. YOUNG 


SEMI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE 


General Committee 


Frederick R. Babcock, Chairman Mr. C. G. Harshaw 


Mr. Hamilton Stewart Mrs. William H. Craig 
Dr. E. J. Fithian Dean Alva J. Calderwood 
Mr. J. Howard Pew Professor Creig S. Hoyt 
Dr. B. A. Montgomery Professor R. G. Walters 
Mrs. Mark W. Graham Mr. Harry D. Book 

Mr. John McCune, Jr. Mr. J. Leo Fay 


Mr. A. C. Leslie Miss Martha Berlin 


8:00 


10:00 


12:30 


4:00 


PROGRAM 
Sunday, June 13th 


P. M.—Baccalaureate Services. Address by the Reverend 
Clarence E. McCartney, D. D., Pastor of the Arch Street 
Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. The United Pres- 
byterian Church. 


Monday, June 14th 


P. M.—Ivy Day Exercises. Address by Professor Harry E. 
Winner, 01. The Campus. 

- 5:00—Art Exhibition. The Studio 

P. M.—Commencement Program of the Oratory Depart- 
ment. The Carnegie Auditorium. 

P. M.—Commencement Program of the Music Department. 
The Carnegie Auditorium. 


Tuesday, June 15th 


A. M.—Class Day Exercises. The United Presbyterian 
Church. 

A. M.—Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees. Admin- 
istration Building. 

P. M.—Semi-Centennial Luncheon for Delegates and Guests. 
The Penn Grove Hotel. 

P. M.—Formation of the Academic Procession. Administra- 
tion Building. 

P. M.—Semi-Centennial Exercises. The United Presbyterian 
Church. 

- §:30—Informal Reception and Tea for Delegates, Alumni 
and Guests. The Colonial. 

P. M.—Semi-Centennial Dinner. The Penn Grove Hotel. 


Wednesday, June 16th 


A. M.—The Commencement Exercises. Address by Honor- 
able M. Clyde Kelly, Representative of the Thirty-Third 
Congressional District of Pennsylvania. The United 
Presbyterian Church. 

P. M.—The Alumni Luncheon. Reunions of the classes of 
81, °86, "91, °96, "Ol, “11, "16, 21. The College Gym- 
nasium. 


P. M.—Historical Pageant. The College Athletic Field. 


oi Nad 


FOREWORD 


In connection with the Exercises of Commencement Week 
this year the College celebrated the Fiftieth Anniversary of its 
Founding. The formal exercises of the week opened on Sunday 
evening with the Baccalaureate Services which were held in the 
United Presbyterian Church. The address of the evening was made 
by the Reverend Clarence E. McCartney, D. D., Pastor of the Arch 
Street Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, formerly Moderator of 
the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. 


The formal celebration of the Semi-Centennial Anniversary 
opened with an informal luncheon for the delegates and guests of 
the College which was held at the Penn Grove Hotel at noon, Tues- 
day, June 15th. At 2:00 P. M. the Semi-Centennial Exercises were 
held in the United Presbyterian Church. Following the formal ex- 
ercises an informal reception and tea was held at the Colonial, the 
college dormitory for women, and at 6:30 P. M. the Semi-Centen- 
nial Dinner was held at the Penn Grove Hotel. Mr. Frederick R. 
Babcock, President of the Board of Trustees of the College presided 
at the dinner. Those who spoke at the dinner were: Honorable John 


D. Meyer, Esquire, United States District Attorney for Western 
_ Pennsylvania, Mr. S. I. Connor of New York, Dr. Samuel Black 


McCormick, Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh, 
and the Honorable John S. Fisher of Indiana. 


On Wednesday, June 16th at 10:00 A. M. the Commence- 
ment Exercises were held in the United Presbyterian Church. The 
address was made by the Honorable M. Clyde Kelly, Representative 
of the Thirty-third Congressional District of Pennsylvania. The 
annual alumni luncheon was held at 12:30 P. M. and the events of the 
week were brought to a close with an historical pageant depicting 
events of interest in the history of the college and community. This 
pageant was under the direction of Miss Marietta Risely of the col- 
lege faculty, ably assisted by committee drawn from the faculty 
and community. 


ot ae 


TWO O’CLOCK 


UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
President Weir C. Ketler, Presiding 


PROCESSIONAL 
THE INVOCATION 
Reverend William L. McEwan, D. D. 
Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of Grove City College 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME 
Mr. Frederick R. Babcock 
the Board of Trustees of Grove City College 
GREETINGS 
President George L. Omwake, Ursinus College 
Representing the College Presidents’ Association of Pennsylvania 
Dr. Francis B. Haas 
Superintendent of Public Instruction of Pennsylvania 
Mr. Albert C. Leslie, 97 
Representing the Alumni 


PRESENTATION OF DELEGATES 
Dean Alva J. Calderwood 


MUSIC 
Mrs. Ilse Poehlmann Moser 


President of 


Contralto Solo 
A RETROSPECT 
President Weir C. Ketler 


Fifty Years of Higher Education in Pennsylvania 
Dr. Samuel Black McCormick 
Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh 


THE CHURCH AND HIGHER EDUCATION 


Reverend Hugh Thompson Kerr, D. D. 
Pastor of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, and 
President of the Board of Christian Education of the 
Presbyterian Church 


BENEDICTION 
Reverend William E. Purvis, D. D. 
College Pastor 


waa 


1636 
1701 
1749 


1783 
1787 


1791 


1795 


1812 


1815 


1819 


1824 


1825 


1829 


1833 


1835 
1837 


THE DELEGATES 
Educational Institutions 


Harvard University Mr. Alva J. Calderwood, Alumnus 
Yale University Dr. D. Carroll McEuen, Alumnus 


Washington and Lee University 
Reverend John W. Claudy, Alumnus 
Dickinson College Mr. Charles T. Evans, Alumnus 
University of Pittsburgh 
Chancellor Emeritus Samuel Black McCormick 
University of Vermont Mr. William H. Child, Alumnus 
Union College Reverend Herbert H. Brown, Alumnus 
Princeton Theological Seminary 
Reverend William L. McEwan, Alumnus 
Hamilton College Mr. Harold O. White, Alumnus 
Allegheny College Dean Charles F. Ross 
Professor W. A. Elliott 
Auburn Theological Seminary 
Reverend Samuel H. McKinstry, Alumnus 
Center College 
Reverend William L. McEwan, Alumnus 
Lafayette College Professor S. Earl Orwig 
Rensselear Polytechnic Institute 
Mr. Deloss Murtland, Alumnus 
Theological Seminary of the Reform Church 
in the United States Reverend Paul J. Dundore, Alumnus 
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary 
Reverend James Doig Rankin, Alumnus 
Western Theological Seminary 
President James Anderson Kelso 
Professor Frank Eakin 
McCormick Theological Seminary 
Professor Arthur A. Hays 


Oberlin College Miss Sadie May Eakin, Alumnus 
Haverford College Mr. Elias Ritts, Alumnus 
Marietta College Mr. William B. Irwine, Alumnus 


Mount Holyoke College Mrs. E. J. Ingraham, Alumnus 
Muskingum College 

Reverend Don P. Montgomery, Alumnus 
DePauw University Mr. Gerald J. Bridges, Alumnus 


ses, 


1839 


1841 


1842 


1844 
1845 


1846 


1848 
1850 


1852 
1855 
1856 
1858 


1859 
1861 


1864 
1868 
1869 


1870 


1874 
1876 
1885 


1888 
1889 


University of Missouri 
Mr. Hillir McClure Burrowes, Alumnus 
Ohio Weslyn University 
Mrs. Lois Cory-Thompson, Alumnus 


University of Notre Dame 
Mr. John W. Ely, Alumnus 
Hillsdale College Reverend Will C. Chappell, Alumnus 
Wittenberg College 
Mr. Frederick Lewis Bach, Alumnus 
Mount Union College Professor George Arthur Cribbs 
Bucknell University Mr. Roy G. Bostwick, Trustee 
Hahnemann Medical College Dean W. A. Pearson 
Capital University 
Reverend W. E. Schramm, Alumnus 
Westminster College Professor James A. Swindler 
Ardian College Mr. William A. Walker, Alumnus 
Garrett Biblical Institute 
Reverend Norris A. White, Alumnus 
Albright College President Clellan A. Bowman 
Susquehanna University President Charles T. Aikens 
Whitman College = Reverend Charles E. Tuke, Alumnus 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
Mr. William T. Johnson Jr., Alumnus 
Vassar College Mrs. Henry H. Bagger, Alumnus 
Bates College Mr. Charles Earl Packard, Alumnus 
University of Minnesota Mr. Marc C. Leager, Alumnus 
Pennsylvania College for Women 
President Cora Helen Coolidge 


Ursinus College President George L. Omwake 
University of California Mr. Bert Bare, Alumnus 
Thiel College Acting President B. H. Pershing 


Colorado Agricultural College Mr. Edwin Lundy, Alumnus 
Syracuse University | Mr. Thomas C. Blaisdell, Alumnus 
Colorado College 
Mr. Stephen Lincoln Goodale, Alumnus 
John Hopkins University 
Mr. Samuel Grant Oliphant, Alumnus 
Stanford University | Mr. Perl. Vincent Gifford, Alumnus 
Temple University Dean James H. Dunham 
Seton Hill College 
Vice-President James A. Wallace Reeves 


we siees 


Slippery Rock State Normal School 
Professor R. A. Waldron 
1891 Presbyterian Theological Seminary 
Professor Daniel E. Jenkins 
1892 University of Chicago 
Mr. Werner F. Woodring, Alumnus 
1897 Bradley Polytechnic Institute 
Professor Arthur Eugene Gault 
1900 Carnegie Institute of Technology 
Professor Arthur Crawford Jewett, Director 
of College of Industries 


FOUNDATIONS AND SOCIETIES 


Department of Public Instruction of the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania Superintendent Francis B. Haas 


National Education Association 
Superintendent William M. Davidson 
Pittsburgh Public Schools 


The United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa 
Secretary Oscar M. Voorhees 


American Mathematical Society Mr. Oscar P. Akers 


INVOCATION 
BY 
THE REVEREND DR. WILLIAM L. McCEWAN 
Pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh 
Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of Grove City College 


PRESIDENT KETLER: 

In opening this meeting today it is only fitting that someone 
representing the College should bring to the visiting delegates and 
guests some expression of the feelings of appreciation and the welcome 
that we of the College are experiencing today. Those in charge of 
this program felt that there was no one who could more appropriately 
bring such a greeting than a man who for years, in season and out 
of season, has put his time and effort and his very heart into the 
building of the College. Mr. Frederick Raymond Babcock, President 
of the Board of Trustees. 


ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO DELEGATES 
jae 
FREDERICK R. BABCOCK 


President of the Board of Trustees 


I regard it a very high privilege, as well as a great pleasure 
to extend a most cordial welcome to the distinguished visitors and 
friends of the college who are assembled here today. We somehow 
feel that your presence at this semi-centennial celebration which I, 
personally, like to term our Golden Anniversary, is an indication of 
your interest in the work of the college, and we hope your approval 
ot that work. 

We realize, of course, that fifty years of service on the part 
of an educational institution is not an extremely long period. There 
are no doubt some here today who have known the institution 
throughout its entire life, and whose contributions to it have con- 
tinued over the entire period. Its very youth, however, has compen- 
sating factors. Those whose connection with it is limited to a shorter 
time may well claim to have known, and have aided in its work 
during a very large portion of its history. Although fifty years is 
not a long period, it is still long enough to test the worth of an idea, 
or of an institution, and we believe that in the last fifty years the 
work of the college has born fruitage of a real and substantial char- 
acter. He who would know of this work need only look about. 

I somehow feel, speaking for the Trustees, that perhaps I am 
expected to dwell to some extent upon the policy and the accom- 


hee 


plishments of the college but in light of the fact that we are to be 
honored by learned and experienced speakers, I am rather inclined 
to follow the course of the least resistance and reminisce a little, be- 
lieving that perhaps some of you will be more interested in the story 
of what has actually transpired in the past few years than you would 
in any attempt on my part to define the desires and ambitions of the 
college. 

Naturally, in our work, it has been our purpose to create 
a back-ground for young men and women that would be useful in 
their lives, which they would not ordinarily obtain otherwise, through 
the building of character and a complete preparation for vocational 
service, therefore, it seems to me that a brief reference to the founder 
of this splendid college, and those who materially assisted him, would 
be quite fitting at this time. 

Doctor Isaac C. Ketler was a man God-gifted, and God-armed 
for the battle of right against wrong. When he spoke, he spoke with 
a purpose, with sound judgment and solid information. There is not 
a heart that loves humanity and feels that noble urge for right and 
truth and justice: there is not a devotee who bows his head in free 
worship to his Maker that does not thank God that Isaac C. Ketler 
lived, and his life goes marching on. 

Those who, perhaps more than any others, were responsible 
for what we now enjoy were those who knew and had confidence in 
Doctor Ketler—Mr. J. N. Pew, Mr. Samuel P. Harbison and Mr. 
W. H. Burchfield—and those of us who know what they did, and 
how their acts made possible these conditions will, I am sure, thank 
God that they lived and that their lives go marching on. 

Doctor Ketler conceived and planned, and they assisted in mak- 
ing possible this institution. In mentioning these men, I am not un- 
mindful of all the elements necessary to our success: the officers and 
the faculty: the student body and the Alumni: the Board of Direc- 
tors and the community. They all functioned well and equally and 
share in the accomplishments achieved. It has always been a joy to 
me to observe the very remarkable degree of cooperation and com- 
munity spirit existing. I have often said, and am proud to say it 
again and again that this Board of Trustees is one of the finest body 
of men over which I have ever been permitted to preside. 

Now, briefly, let me review a few incidents in connection 
with the changes and developments which show that they were not 
altogether matters of chance but rather foresight. 

I recall vividly walking from the office to the house one night 


eva 


with Dr. Ketler when he showed great joy and pride in the fact that 
Weir, although ambitious to enter the law, had decided to stay and 
assist him in the college work for a year or two at least. 

About that time we had our usual annual meeting and I 
happened to be made chairman of the (Nominating Committee to fill 
the vacancies on the Board of Trustees. We found that we had 
eight vacancies. 

I had a remarkably active committee and we went to the meet- 
ing with expressions of willingness to serve from several men if 
elected. Doctor Ketler said to me that Mr. Pew wanted to see me. 
I immediately located Mr. Pew who said “Mr. Babcock, I understand 
you have some very fine names to present to our Board of Trustees” 
and I replied “I think we have.” How many vacancies have you? 
Eight. How many prospects have you? About six. Then Mr. Pew 
said “I would like to suggest for the consideration of your committee 
the names of my son, Howard, who is an alumnus of the college, a 
very promising young man, and one who I am ambitious to see 
placed upon the Board, and my nephew, Mr. John G. Pew, a young 
man in whom I have great confidence.” 

Naturally, I was greatly pleased and immediately assembled 
the members of the Nominating Committee, and when the annual 
meeting convened, we presented eight names, including Mr. Howard 
Pew and Mr. John G. Pew, which we were happy to do. 

That was about the middle of June. Two months later, Mr. 
J. N. Pew was called to the Great Beyond, hence, I ask if it requires 
any great stress of imagination to assume that Mr. Pew was then 
and there laying the ground-work so that his life work would be 
continued. 

After Mr. Pew’s death, in due time, I was elected President 
of the Board, an act that I never could quite understand, and I 
never assumed any responsibility for it. The duties were minor, 
and the task was easy because Doctor Ketler led, and we followed. 

About one year after the call came to Mr. Pew, Doctor Ket- 
ler was taken from us. We were a ship at sea, without a rudder, 
so to speak. An institution conceived, founded, and developed by 
one man and that man had gone. What must we do? We all knew 
what we wanted to do but we wanted to do it without doing a great 
injustice to an individual and it became a difficult problem. 

Our dilemma became known and ambitious would-be col- 
lege presidents from all over the country were unusually active. 
We were receiving applications galore. One Saturday, just before 
noon, came a definite request for an interview regarding Grove City 


eta 


College. I naturally pictured an ambitious candidate. I had a defin- 
ite engagement and really had no time, and less desire, but he was 
insistent: said he had come to Pittsburgh for no other purpose and 
under pressure he was granted a five-minute interview, and he took 
less time. He proved to be Doctor Hoban, an educator assisting in 
the summer school at Grove City. He had been selected by the 
summer faculty to convey a definite message to me, as President of 
the Board of Trustees. 


They had canvassed the field and agreed to recommend to 
the Board one whom they all knew: one who knew the college, and 
one who was at that time a member of their summer faculty, Doctor 
Ormond, the great philosopher of Princeton. 


His brevity and forcefulness impressed me. How about it, 
would he do? 


Immediately, I arranged a conference with Mr. Weir Ketler 
at my home where we considered and discussed every phase of the 
situation until long after midnight and I sent him home to consult 
his mother, and report. 


In due course, word came that in their judgment such a 
change would be a very happy one from their standpoint, and then 
it went to the Board, and in due time, Doctor Ormond was ap- 
pointed President of the college and we rejoiced in the belief that the 
move was a very wise one. That said in a word to the educational 
world that Grove City College would continue to go forward. 

A few months after Doctor Ormond took up his duties as 
President of the College, I happened to be in Grove City and Weir 
_Ketler said “Mr. Babcock, I am most happy in Doctor Ormond’s 
progress. I hardly would have believed it possible for any one man 
to do what he has done in so short a time.” Of course, that was 
very pleasing. 

A short time later, Doctor Ormond spent the night with me, 
at my home, and after dinner while he was smoking his cigar, he 
remarked to me “Do you know, Mr. Babcock, I find in Weir Ketler 
great possibilities. He is a remarkable young man and in recognition 
thereof, I have made him Secretary to the Faculty.” 

Then I told Doctor Ormond, in my own way, that since 
he had discovered what we all knew, that he had been brought to 
Greve City to bridge the span, and prepare Weir to be his successor, 
and that anything he could do to that end would certainly be appre- 
ciated and long remembered. 

Doctor Ormond was spared to us only two and a half years 


ily ale 


but he had done his work well and faithfully, and whea he was taken 
from us, Weir was put into the saddle. 


Let me say in conclusion that while Doctor Isaac C. Ketler 
arose to the pinnacle of achievement in the hearts of those who knew 
him and loved him, our honored President, Dr. Weir C. Ketler, en- 
joys an equally distinctive place in the hearts of all who know and 
love him. 


Never in the history of the college has there prevailed a 
finer spirit than exists today in every department and we are indeed 
happy to have you with us on this joyous occasion. 

PRESIDENT KETLER: 


In the work of higher education, this College is only one of 
many similar institutions engaged in a like enterprise. Many of the 
problems that confront it are common to all. And through the years 
it has received great benefits from the association with and coopera- 
tion with the other colleges of the state. It is fitting and gratifying 
that greetings should be brought from the colleges of Pennsylvania 
by one who has not only given himself in the upbuilding of a sister 
institution but who has been a leader in the larger cause of education 
in the State. I am glad to welcome and introduce President George 
L. Omwake, of Ursinus College, Secretary of the College Presidents’ 


Association of Pennsylvania. 


ADDRESS 
by 
PRESIDENT GEORGE L. OMWAKE 
Secretary of the College Presidents’ Association of Pennsylvania 


President Ketler, Members of the Board and of the Faculty of Grove 
City College: 

I have the honor to represent the Association of College 
Presidents of Pennsylvania. As such I bring you cordial greetings 
on the completion of fifty years of splendid achievement in the cause 
of higher education. I want to assure all of you who are associated 
with President Ketler in this work that in our Association we hold in 
high esteem, on account of his personality and scholarship, your 
representative in our Association. We congratulate Grove City 
College on her able leadership. 

The Association of College Presidents is not an organization 
of institutions but of individuals. It is naturally a highly exclusive 
body and it is a notable distinction to be a member of it. Yet mem- 
bership in this Association is significant chiefly because of what its 


—]4 


members represent. As executives and administrative officers of the 
institutions of learning of this great state, the college presidents of 
Pennsylvania are charged with weighty responsibilities. They repre- 
sent institutions of all sizes and types. The majority of our mem- 
bers, however, stand for work of a character similar to that per- 
formed by this college. Most of the institutions of higher learning in 
Pennsylvania are liberal arts colleges, independent in their constitu- 
tion, and Christian in character and purpose. As one who works in 
a college of this kind I think I can enter into your celebration with 
peculiar understanding and appreciation of the joys of the occasion. 

The review of your history as just given by the President 
of your Board of Trustees reveals that Grove City has been blessed 
with great personalities. It is personality quite as much as scholarship 
that counts in the life of a college, yet neither one of these assets 
without the other avails anything, and what our colleges are con- 
cerned about just now is how to heighten the standards of scholar- 
ship in our State. Every institution today has to deal with two dis- 
tinct classes of students—those that are in college for the pursuit of 
learning and who aim to become scholars, and that other class who 
are in college to study, yes, but who are not interested in scholarship, 
whose purpose rather is to get such social adjustment as will enable 
them to get along in a world dominated largely by college men and 
women. The first essential is to recognize that we have these two 
classes of students in all our colleges and universities and that they 
require different treatment. It is equally important to recognize 
that both of these classes exist below the college in the great high 
school system whence come most candidates for college admission. 
I am glad for the chance to point out here in the presence of our 
distinguished State Superintendent of Public Instruction that in the 
recognition of these two distinct types of pupils in school and of 
students in colleges will we find the solution to the problem of schol- 
arship, and that the problem can be solved only by the intelligent 
cooperation of the Public School System and the Colleges. In this 
view I feel assured the State Superintendent concurs. Far more of 
the energies expended both in High School and in College must be 
devoted to the scholarly class, and the proportion of this class finding 
their way to college must be greatly augmented, so that the “schol- 
ars” rather than the “social adjusters” shall dominate the college life. 

I am no prophet, but I venture to predict that within the 
next decade or two liberal arts colleges will be devoting much more 
attention to instruction in the fine arts. We have reached the 
stage in American culture when an historical and critical knowledge, 


NE pele: 


if not technical ability, in the fine arts is expected in the educated 
person. An equipment of this kind will certainly be required of 
those who enter upon the humanitarian professions, such as teaching 
and the ministry. Art in the form of painting, sculpture, architec- 
ture, landscaping and music should be understood and felt by the 
truly educated in this day and generation. 

Another observation that will be appropriate in this presence 
and one that is not in the nature of a prophecy but rather the state- 
ment of a fact, is that colleges historically connected with the 
Churches are tending to emphasize their Christian standing with 
fresh avowals of purpose in the direction of character building and 
social righteousness. Encouragement along this line comes not alone 
from within the Churches but with point and forcefulness from in- 
dustrial and civic sources. Our country as a whole craves leadership 
that shall be more thoroughly imbued with the spirit and principles 
of Christ. 

It is with problems and tendencies like these in the forefront 
that you of Grove City now start out on your second half century. 
Great things yet to do conspire with great things already done to 
challenge your best efforts. Your sister institutions of Pennsylvania, 
sharing as they must the inspiration of our great age, unite in be- 
speaking for Grove City College unprecedented loyalty and support 
on the part of her rapidly increasing host of patrons, to the end that 
the refinements of education and religion, as represented in high 
scholarship and true Christian character may be made to flow forth 
in more copious streams to a world that is becoming more and more 
consciously athirst for these divine blessings. 


PRESIDENT KETLER: 

From its very inception the College has been closely identi- 
fied with Public Schools of the State. Its first President had been a 
teacher in those schools as well as a product of them and he had 
sympathetic understanding of the teachers’ problems. Throughout 
the years a very large percentage of the students of the College have 
been or have become teachers in the public schools. It is most grati- 
fying today to have with us the distinguished head of that great 
system, Dr. Francis B. Haas, Superintendent of Public Instruction 
of the State. 

ADDRESS 
By 
DR. FRANCIS B. HAAS 


Superintendent of Public Instruction of Pennsylvania 


piiss eet 


“In a form of government such as ours, an educational insti- 
tution to be worthy and to merit support can only exist insofar as it 
typifies in its life the persistence of a worthy ideal. The persistence 
of a worthy ideal through the machinery of an institution means that 
some individual must have originally conceived the ideal—must have 
been able to inspire others to be willing to work and sacrifice in order 
that the ideal might be realized. 

“This means that there must be gathered about the founder 
a faculty, a Board of Trustees, a student body; so that the concrete 
product of the ideal is evidenced in the enthusiasm of the alumni and 
friends. 

“Judged from these few criteria, Grove City College is a 
worthy institution and is making a worthy contribution to our demo- 
cratic life. This is of special interest to our Department because 
such a large proportion of the Grove City graduates have gone into 
the educational field. A few figures compiled some years ago dem- 
onstrate this. 


1. In the twenty-five counties of Western Penn- 
sylvania there are thirteen colleges, yet fourteen of 
the twenty-five county superintendents of schools 
and nine assistant county superintendents received 
all or a part of their education in Grove City Col- 
lege. 
2. While in the State the average number of 
superintendents of schools per college was six, 
twenty-five were Grove City College men. 
3. In twenty counties in the western part of the 
State, while the average number of high schools 
per college was twenty-four, eighty-four principals 
received all or a portion of their training at 
Grove City College. 
4. In 1916 and 1917, the average number of 
college permanent certificates granted per college 
was 5.95 and 5.85 respectively; the number 
granted to graduates of Grove City College was 
29 and 22. 
5. Estimates made several years ago showed that 
the percentage of the graduating class entering the 
teaching profession ran as high as seventy per cent. 
6. In the five years 1918-1922, out of a total of 
two hundred fifty graduates, one hundred sixty-six 
were in educational work. 


RS [ly : gi 


“In conclusion, 1 take the liberty of pointing out what to me 
seems to be a real educational opportunity for service for institu- 
tions like yours—namely, the simplification and adaption of the ad- 
ministrative machinery to the needs of the teacher-pupil contact. 
This is a problem for leadership to work upon. 

“Seldom in our history has the opportunity been given for 
a worthy son to supplement and bring to full fruition the ideals of 
his father with whom he is in sympathy.” 


PRESIDENT KETLER: 


A College is judged by the men and women who have re- 
ceived instruction in its halls. And more and more, colleges are 
coming to depend on them for support. The College is proud of 
the records of its alumni and is grateful to them for their constant 
and substantial help. The next speaker has not only exemplified the 
finest standards of the College in his private business life but has 
been ready to give his time and thought and influence in every time 
of need. I am glad to present Mr. A. C. Leslie, °97, who will bring 
a greeting from the alumni. 


ADDRESS 
By 
MEA Ca Loc Lees 7 
Chairman of Alumni Campaign for Endowment 


PRESENTATION OF DELEGATES 


The delegates were formally presented by Dean Alva J. Cal- 
derwood of the college faculty. 


MUSIC 
Contra lto Solo on wget Sia) aie Mrs. Ilse Poehlmann Moser 


A RETROSPECT 


Grove City College in the Last Fifty Years 
PRESIDENT WEIR C. KETLER 


Fifty years is a comparatively short time in the history of a 
civilization, or a nation or even, perhaps, of an institution. There 
have been times in the histories of civilizations and of nations and 
even, perhaps, of institutions when the record of the achievements 
of fifty years might easily be blotted out without causing any great 
loss or creating any serious break in the record of progress. But 


=| §——- 


while such a statement can truly be made of civilizations and nations 
and institutions in certain periods of time, it cannot be made of our 
civilization, nor of our nation, nor of Grove City College in the 
last fifty years. 


Grove City College is just fifty years old but what a marve- 
lous period it has been! Eighteen seventy-six might almost be said 
to be the beginning of the modern era. In that year the Nation 
celebrated the centennial of its founding. The Exhibition at Phil- 
adelphia was a great stimulus to the nation. The Civil War was 
over, its issues settled and the nation was rapidly recovering from 
the effects of the War and the Reconstruction. The great West had 
been opened by the transcontinental railroads and was being settled. 


It was during that year that Alexander Bell transmitted the 
first telephone message. The age of electricity, with all that it means 
to us today was just showing faint signs of dawn. In these fifty 
years practically all of its present development has come. 


Medical Science was entering upon a period which was to re- 
cord greater progress than in all the previous reaches of time. 


In this district the petroleum industry was emerging from chaotic 
conditions under the leadership of courageous farseeing men. And 
although the leaders of the industry had great expectations, it is 
safe to say that no one then dreamed of the progress that fifty years 
was to record. What an amazing record is the record of industry 
in this country in the last fifty years. 

Nor has education lagged behind. Public education with its 
free elementary schools and high schools is largely a development 
of these years. The world has never in any other period, in any 
other land witnessed such a development and it is during this period 
that Grove City College was founded and has developed and has 
made its contribution. 


Just as the soil and climate are determining factors in the growth 
of a plant, so in the founding and development of an institution the 
community back-ground and atmosphere must be considered. Fifty 
years ago this community was small, having a population of hardly 
more than two hundred. It was poor, there were no men of wealth 
in it. It was comparatively isolated, only recently had it been con- 
nected to the outside world by a pioneering railroad, financed partly, 
at least, by English capital. Why should it have been soil in which 
a College could and did flourish? No one can surely say. But for 
twenty years the community had been interested in higher 
education. Following an old New England custom the ministers of 


oy [ee 


the community had been leaders in this enterprise. First Reverend 
Richard Thompson and later Reverend Wm. T. Dickson and his 
wife, Mrs. Harriet L. Dickson, gave instruction in the higher branches 
to the young people of the village and the surrounding community. 
‘There are those here today who received instruction in that early 
school, held in the minister’s home or in ‘the Church. Perhaps even 
more fundamental than these educational efforts was the religious and 
moral background out of which they grew. The community had much 
in common with the earlier sturdy Puritan Communities of New 
England. 

It was perhaps only natural that in 1874 when the local school 
district found it necessary to build a new common school building 
that a movement was started to provide suitable quarters for the in- 
struction of the youth of the community in the higher branches. A 
public meeting was called; the question was discussed and a com- 
mittee was appointed to solicit funds by private subscription so that 
a second story, devoted to the higher branches, might be added to the 
new school building. The committee went to work and the com- 
munity, in a spirit prophetic of its later history, responded in gener- 
ous fashion. The new building was erected and the local stage was 
set for the new enterprise. 

‘Now for the actors and the play itself! In the spring of 1876 
the Directors were looking for a man to conduct the school. A 
young man, Isaac C. Ketler, of twenty-two years of age, then study- 
ing in an Ohio institution applied. His cause was advocated by his 
friend, who was later to be so closely associated with him, James B. 
McClelland. Their joint efforts were successful and by a vote of 
four to three the school was given him. 


The leader of the new enterprise had an intellectual enthusiasm 
that had already driven him to overcome serious obstacles. His 
father had opposed his ambitions. He was determined that his boy 
should stay at home and enter business with him. But the boy was 
not to be stopped. He ran away from home. In central Pennsyl- 
vania, he worked in the lumber camps and brick yards and saved 
enough money to start his higher education. Then by alternate per- 
iods of study and teaching he continued his education. 


One wonders what influence so stirred his intellectual faculties 
and desires. The only apparent answer is that as a boy in the country 
school he came in contact with two strong men who were his teachers, 
and that he was inspired to follow their examples. One, John W. 
Cannon, later played an important!part in the educational life of 


pt 


Western Pennsylvania and the other, Joseph Newton Pew, was des- 
tined to come to the support of the College at a critical period in its 
history and become a great leader in its development. Both of these 
men had studied in the Edinboro State Normal School and both had 
become, at least temporarily, teachers. It was only natural that he 
should study where they studied and later teach as they had taught. 


During the previous year he had taught the Scrubgrass School 
near the Allegheny River. He had been successful. A new build- 
ing had been erected and the directors asked him to return, promis- 
ing a salary of one hundred dollars a month and all he could make 
in addition. He preferred, however, to come to the village of Pine 
Grove, even though no salary was promised and though it would 
be necessary for him to build up his own school. He came because 
he knew the character of the community, it was near his old home 
and it had railroad connections with the outside world. Before he 
came to take up his work this young, poor country-school teacher 
confided in a friend that he intended to start a College. One wonders 
what the feeling of that friend must have been. 


On April 11, 1876, the new school was opened. From a letter 
written to his friend, James B. McClelland, it is evident that he 
originally planned to open it some weeks earlier but for some un- 
known reason the opening was postponed. On the first day thirteen 
students enrolled and during the term twenty-six. Comparatively 
few were from the village. Some had followed him from Scrub- 
grass, where he had previously taught. By fail the school had grown 
to over seventy and it was necessary to secure help to carry on the 
work. The school grew rapidly. Sessions were now held in the 
Presbyterian church as well as in the district school building and it 
soon became evident that it was necessary to form a new organiza- 
tion and provide better facilities for the work. 

Tradition has it that one of the men with whom he first dis- 
cussed the project of a new building, replied, “Young man, if that 
could have been done it would have been done long before you came 
here.” The other leaders of the community looked with more favor 
on the project and in September, 1878, a meeting was called to con- 
sider it. 

In writing the record of this first meeting the first President 
said: ‘““At this meeting Mr. Robert G. Black presided. In opening 
the meeting he said, “In view of the very great and vital interest 
which has brought us together, it is proper and wise that Divine 
Guidance and blessing be sought.” “The religious spirit of that 


Lis) poe 


first meeting of the citizens,” he continued, “has characterized the 
subsequent work of this school.” 

A committee composed of Wm. A. Young, Dr. J. M. Martin, 
James P. Locke, James Hunter and Joseph Humphrey, was appointed. 
The duty of this committee, known as a Finance Committee, was tc 
act in executive capacity until a permanent organization should be 
formed. They were to provide means for the purchase of grounds 
and the erection of a building and were to apply for a charter of — 


incorporation. In August 1879 the charter was granted for the pur- 
pose of establishing and maintaining a school to be known as the 
Pine Grove Normal Academy. It was a stock company with a cap- 
ital originally of $25,000, divided into shares of $10.00 each. When 
four hundred shares had been subscribed and 20 percent was paid 
in, the charter was to become effective. Captain R. C. Craig was 
appointed to solicit funds and early in the spring of 1879, the con- 
ditions being fulfilled, the committee purchased four acres of ground 
and began the erection of what is known today as the Recitation 
Building of Grove City College. It was completed and occupied in 
December 1879. 


The record of that achievement is quickly written and as soon 
read. But the achievement itself is none-the-less a notable one. It 
stands today as a great monument to the faith and courage and un- 
selfish devotion of the leaders of the movement and the community 
at-large that supported them. It was no easy task to secure the 
pledges in a community, then small and poor. Nor was the payment 
of the pledges a simple matter. In the erection of the building it 
was necessary for members of the first committee to pledge their own 
slender resources as security for money borrowed, for the new en- 
terprise. A failure would have meant disaster to them. Some paid 
their pledges by contributions of materials or by labor on the build- 
ing. But the difficulties were overcome and a vision became a reality. 


From that time on tae growth was a steady one. In 1882, a 
second building, now a part of the Physics Building, was erected. 
A small dormitory for women, built by Reverend Wm. J. McCon- 
key, throughout his life a staunch supporter of the institution, soon 
followed. This building was later purchased by the College. It 
was remodeled and is now known as the Music Hall. On Novem- 
ber 21, 1884 the charter of the Academy was changed by a decree 
of the Court giving the institution the full powers of a College. 
Even before this time college work had been given and from 1881 


—22—— 


classes having completed collegiate courses of study had been grad- 
uated. 


The College continued to grow and it became evident that new 
facilities were needed. And on December 23, 1886, the matter was 
officially discussed by the Board of Trustees and it was decided to 
_proceed with the erection of a new building if sufficient money 
could be raised to justify the action. The President of the College 
was authorized to solicit funds and shortly reported that $9,000.00 
had been pledged. Additional ground was purchased and the erec- 
tion of the present Administration Building was undertaken. It 
was completed on September 1, 1888. It was a great forward step. 
It, however, laid a burden of debt on the College and probably was 
one of the factors that made necessary an important change in the 
character of the College that was to take place a few years later. 
The period up to 1894 might well be known as a period of foun- 
dations. From very humble beginnings the institution had become a 
College with a substantial campus and group of buildings. It had 
secured an experienced and able faculty and most important of all, 
it had established a reputation for ‘the solid character of its work 
and the worth of its aims and ideals. 


During the period there had been a steady expansion of its 
work. The faculty had grown and the names of those early in- 
structors mean much to the students of that day and some of them, 
to students of a later day. In such a paper as this it is not pos- 
sible to name them all, much less value their contributions. One 
cannot overlook, however, the contributions of James B. McClelland 
and John A. Courtney, members of the first college faculty, who 
spent the remainder of their lives in the College, and Frank W. 
Hays and Samuel Dodds, who, coming a little later, served it so long. 
Among others who might be mentioned are Miss Ella Kinder, R. C. 
VanEman, W. S. McNees, Homer Rose and Horace Dodds. 


Of the contributions of the members of the Board in those early 
years no praise can be too high. To quote the first President, “To 
their wise and careful administration is largely due the success of the 
College. Severely economical where economy could be practiced 
with safety, generous even to personal sacrifices when the resources 
of the College were not adequate to its plainly evident needs, in- 
vesting every dollar of a sadly insufficient income where it would 
count most for the advancement of the College, in season and out 
of season they gave the College their time, their money and their 
consecrated service.” Among the men who served for a longer period, 


a ogre 


who never failed in their support of the College were W. A. Young, 
Thomas W. Dale, R. C. Craig, Newton White and J. C. Glenn. 


In September, 1894, while the College had property valued 
at $100,000.00 it was in debt; and needed additional equipment. 
There were fears that unless help could be secured the College 
might fail to meet its bills and that all that had been accomplished 
would be lost. Up to this time the College was a community en- 
terprise. Most the resources had come from the sale of stock in the 
enterprise to people either living in the community or within a 
radius of a few miles of it. Now it was realized that outside help 
must be secured if the College was to endure and grow. The Presi- 
dent of the College approached a number of leading men living at 
a distance from Grove City among whom were Mr. J. N. Pew, Mr. 
S. P. Harbison, Major A. P. Burchfield, Mr. Edward O'Neil, Rev- 
erend Wm. N. McMillan and Reverend Joseph T. Gibson of Pitts- 
burgh. . 


An interesting story is told of Mr. Ketler’s approach to Mr. 
Pew. When teaching at Scrubgrass there developed an opening in 
the principalship of the Schools of Parker City then a thriving oil 
community. He went down to investigate the position and while 
there was entertained at dinner by his former teacher, Mr. Pew, who 
was then starting in the oil business. During their visit Mr. Pew 
said that he felt it would be wiser to give up the teaching profes- 
sion and go into business with him. He saw no very attractive fut- 
ure in teaching. While the outlook for the oil business was attrac- 
tive and he felt they could make a success of it. In 1894, the inc1- 
dent was recalled and in approaching Mr. Pew, Mr. Ketler said, 
“Mr. Pew, years ago you asked me to go into business with you, 
now I have come to ask you to go into business with me.” 


After discussing the situation Mr. Pew agreed to take a place 
on the Board of Trustees if Mr. Harbison, Mr. Burchfield and other 
Pittsburgh men would join him. They agreed but with one im- 
portant condition. Up to this time the College was a stock corpor- 
ation. Mr. Pew and Mr. Harbison felt that the arrangement was not 
satisfactory and advised that the stock feature be eliminated so that 
the College might be incorporated in the class of eleemosynary in- 
stitutions. On Novemeber 4, 1894, the stockholders met in the 
College Chapel and without a dissenting voice voted to give up their 
proprietary rights in the College and make it possible for the College 
to be placed in the class of public charitable institutions with a self- 
perpetuating Board of Trustees. The unanimous action is all the 


a) Yee 


more unusual and commendable when it is remembered that there 
were 256 stockholders representing different religious denominations 
and maintaining different attitudes toward the College. 


The necessary changes in the charter were made and on 
January 2, 1895, the new Board was organized. The officers were: 
President, J. N. Pew; Vice-President, Reverend Wm. H. McMillan; 
Secretary, J. C. Glenn and Treasurer, Wm. A. Young. The Fin- 
ance Committee included, Major Burchfield who was appointed the 
Chairman, Mr. Harbison and others. Mr. Dale was Chairman of 
the Executive Committee, Dr. McConkey was Chairman of the 
Committee on Instruction and Mr. O’Neil was Chairman of the 
Library Committee. 


The new Board was not content merely to conserve the 
achievements of the past. They were quick to realize that much 
“needed to be done. At the first meeting a survey was taken of the 
needs of the College and steps were taken to meet those needs. As 
one reads the record of the meetings of the Board, one comes to 
look on it as a record of progress. There are few meetings that 
do not record achievements, more or less notable, or the consider- 
ation of ambitious plans for the future. 


Among the problems that received the attention of the Board 
during those years were: the enlargement of the Faculty and the 
establishment of new departments, the increase of salaries and the 
reorganization of the system of bookkeeping. A safe for the pro- 
tection of records of the College was purchased. The college prop- 
erty was surveyed, plotted and revalued. The insurance was in- 
creased and under the leadership of the Finance Committee the fin’ 
ances of the College were put on a sound basis. New property was 
purchased. Sewers were laid and sanitary improvements made. The 
Music Hall was rebuilt. Steam heating was installed; lawns were 
graded; walks were laid and the athletic field was improved. One 
of the notable events of one of those early Board Meetings was the 
announcement by the Chairman of the Library Committee, Mr. 
‘O'Neil, that Mr. Andrew Carnegie had contributed $500.00 to the 
College for the purchase of books. The importance of a Library 
was early recognized. The records of the early eighties mark the 
start of it when the young President agreed to furnish $100 for the 
establishment of a Library if the Trustees would add $200 to it for 
a similar purpose. The growth, however, had been slow and Mr. 
Carnegie’s gift was most cheering. Nor did his interest in the Col- 
lege cease with that gift. Shortly afterwards he erected the Car- 


Si 


negie Library Building which has since served the growing needs 
of College and community and at a still later date gave twenty 
thousand dollars to the endowment fund of the College. The Library 
which received such an impetus at that time, has in recent years 
had a steady and substantial growth, largely due to the generosity 
and leadership of Mr. James H. Hammond, for many years Chair- 
man of the Library Committee of the Board. today it is the center 
of the intellectual life of the College. 


Impetus was given to the science work of the College by the 
Board of Trustees. Mr. Pew was especially interested in this phase 
of the work. A wing was added to the Administration Building to 
house the work in Chemistry. The present Science Building was 
remodeled to house the work in Physics. Laboratories were estab- 
lished and generous appropriations and gifts were made for equip- 
ment. New and experienced teachers were secured and since that 
time the place of Science in the undergraduate life of the College 
has been a steadily enlarging one. 


In 1904, the Colonial, a dormitory for young women was 
built by Mr. Pew. When it was opened, it was considered one of 
the finest structures of its kind in the country and even yet must 
be ranked high among such buildings. No man could have given 
more thought or attention to the building of his own home than 
Mr. Pew gave to the planning, erection and furnishing of the Col- 
onial. He believed that beautiful surroundings have an educational 
and elevating influence. The building reflected this idea in its beau- 
tiful furnishings and appointments and since that time the Colonial 
has not only served as a home for many hundreds of girls but through 
them has made its influence felt on the campus and in the larger 
community. 

A few years before an institution was started under the lead- 
ership of the College which received the generous support of Mr. 
Harbison and Mr. Pew. It was and is today known as the Grove 
City Bible School. Its aim is to bring to the community leaders from 
the various fields of Christian thought and achievement. It has never 
attempted to be merely popular or entertaining but rather to make 
its appeal thoughtful, constructive and evangelical. Many of the 
outstanding leaders and scholars of the Churches in this and other 
lands have appeared on its platform. 

During this period largely through the generous gifts of Mr. 
Pew, Mr. Harbison and Mr. Henry Buhl an endowment fund was 
established. To that fund in later years, a great addition was made in 


—26— 


the campaign carried on by the Trustees and alumni of the College. 
And in recent months through the Endowment Campaign the friends 
of the College have added to it in a truly magnificent way. 


Early in 1913 the present Gymnasium was dedicated. It may 
almost be said to mark the end of that period in the history of the 
College which had its origin in 1895. Many of the members of that 
Board had laid down their labors. Mr. Harbison, Mr. Burchfield, 
Mr. Young, Mr. Glenn and others had died in the few years pre- 
ceding that date. Just before the completion of the building in Nov- 
ember 1912 Mr. Pew, who for so many years had been the Presi- 
dent of the Board, was suddenly stricken in his office. And shortly 
after its dedication, in 1913, the first President of the College, 
Isaac C. Ketler, who had been identified with it from its origin was 
suddenly cut off. Thus in less than a year the College lost the 
President of the Board of Trustees and the President of the Faculty. 
It was a crisis period and there were many who were anxious about 
the future. 


The College was fortunate in having on the Board a small but 
important group of men who had served on that body for many 
years including Mr. O’Neil, Mr. Buhl and Mr. Wilson A. Shaw 
who are still serving on it as well as a group of younger men who had 
been elected during the few preceding years and who had assumed 
the responsibilities laid down by the older Trustees. And it was from 
this group that the Board chose a President, Mr. Frederick R. Bab- 
cock, who was to be the leader in that critical period and under 
whose wise leadership the College continues to prosper. 


One of the features of the summer work of the College at 
that time was a graduate school of Philosophy. Dr. Alexander T. 
Ormond of Princeton University, recognized as one of the country’s 
leading philosophers had been for several years a teacher in that 
school and a trusted friend of the President. When the Board of 
Trustees was seeking a man to become President of the Faculty, in 
what seems almost a providential way their attention was turned to 
him. At a personal sacrifice he accepted the presidency of the Col- 
lege. His reputation as a scholar gave assurance to the World at 
large that the standards of the College would be maintained. His 
knowledge of the College gave confidence to the Faculty. In the 
comparatively brief period of his service he accomplished much. He 
had a great vision for the College. He reorganized the Faculty and 
enlarged it. He rewrote the course of study. And he inspired those 
with whom he came in contact with his spirit and ideals. In spite 


of ill health he worked on, until suddenly in December 1915 he died 
while on his way to visit his brother at Elderton, Pennsylvania. Thus 
in barely more than three years the College had lost three leaders 
and was just entering the trying period of the War. 


The time alloted does not permit more than a brief review of 
this period of the history of the College. We are still in that period 
and so close to it that a correct appraisement of its achievements is 
more difficult. During this period the campus has been largely 
extended. Memorial Hall was built in 1914 by the Family of Mr. 
Pew and stands as an enduring monument to the constructive work 
of Mr. Pew. And only recently they have greatly enlarged and 
beautified the Colonial which is a silent, though unnamed, memorial 
to his interest in the College and the young women who attend it. 


In the Samuel P. Harbison Fund, the Family of Mr. Harbi- 
son have provided a magnificent endowment for the Department of 
Bible and the distinctly religious work of the College. In no more 
fitting way could his spirit and influence on the life of the College 
be perpetuated. 


Only recently, the memory of Major A. P. Burchfield has 
been perpetuated in a beautiful way by his Family in the establish- 
ment of the Major A. P. Burchfield Scholarship Foundation. 


But interesting and important as are these substantial mem- 
orials, even more important is the continued interest of the families 
of these men in the College and the definite and personal assump- 
tion of their responsibilities on the Board of Trustees by their sons. 


In this latter period of College history, the Board has shown 
the same spirit that characterized their predecessors. In all the 
difficulties and problems that faced the college during the war and 
after it, there has been the same vision, the same confident courage 
and the same generous interest. When the difficulties seemed to 
loom unusually large to the President of the College he has ever 
found confident and reassuring support in the members of the 
Board and in the actions of that body. There are few colleges 
which owe more to the Board of Trustees, past and present, than 
does Grove City College. In this period, under their leadership 
the Faculty has been largely increased, the student enrollment almost 


doubled and the financial resources of the College have been more 
than doubled. 


One of the developments of recent years has been a growing 
sense of responsibility and an increasing measure of support on the 


pal 7 a 


part of the alumni and former students of the College. Always loyat 
and ever helpful, it was not until after the death of the first Presi- 
dent that they set themselves to a great task. And in establishing 
“The Isaac C. Ketler Memorial Foundation” they accomplished a task 
that at first seemed little less than impossible. In the recent Endow- 
ment Campaign they have assumed even larger responsibilities and 
their achievements have been more substantial by far. 


I feel that I must bring this paper to a close, however, faulty 
or inadequate it may be. I realize that it has been only possible to 
touch briefly upon a few of the events of college history in these 
fifty years and these perhaps not always the most important. I have 
not attempted to emphasize the dramatic side of this story although 
Sir William Ramsey in writing for a British Audience says: “The 
story of achievement is so remarkable, and so characteristic of Am- 
erican life, that it seems worth our attention in Great Britian—not 
as a model to imitate, for that would be possible only under condi- 
tions totally unlike those which exist among us, but as a record of 
achievement, and as a measure of one kind of educational machinery. 
The success must appear so incredible to European readers that I am 
almost afraid to tell the story. Yet it is one of those truths that are 
too strange for a novel, one of those things that no one dare invent. 
or could exaggerate.” 


I have not been able even to mention all the important names. 
of the College history, much less recite their contributions to it. The 
development of many phases of the College has been overlooked. 
We had said nothing of athletic history and nothing of war records. 
in °98 and the World War. But though this paper may fail to re- 
call these services, the records are not lost: they are indelibly 
written in the College itself. That is the true and enduring record. 
It is the monument of the vision, and courage and sacrifices of those 
who as trustees, teachers, students and friends have believed in it 
and given to it. 


But before this record closes a word should be said about the 
community. The College was in its origin a community enterprise, 
and it has never lost its close relationship to the community. It has 
undoubtedly contributed to the community but it has also gained 
much from the community. It has had not only the generous fin- 
ancial support of the community in every time of need. It has had 
not only the sympathy of the community in every difficulty and 
period of crisis; but it has drawn from the spirit of the community 
many of its finer ideals and it has gained much from the religious 


eg ee, 


atmosphere of the community and the sturdy moral character of its 
people. Through the years, the College and community have gone 
forward hand in hand. 


In the last few years the College has owed much to the 
generous support it has received from the General Education Board 
of New York which was established by Mr. John D. Rockefeller. In 
the period following the War the Board generously aided the College 
by granting substantial sums for current expenses.and in the Endow- 
ment Campaign made the magnificent pledge of $100,000.00. This 
aid and the helpful and sympathetic attitude of the officers of the 
Board encouraged the Trustees of the College to launch the recent 
endowment campaign for the College. 


Another factor that contributed to the success of the Cam- 
paign was the aid of the Board of Christian Education of the Pres- 
byterian Church. The cooperation of the officers and members of the 
Promotion Department as well as the ministers and laymen of the 
Church were of invaluable assistance. 

As to the record of those who have gone out from the Col- 
lege in these fifty years, and that, of course, is the most important 
record of all, no one could write it in full and I shall not here attempt 
it at all. They have gone out into many vocations and all over this 
country and into foreign lands. On the whole they have made 
worthy contributions and at times notable ones. Throughout its 
history, the College has sent out a, perhaps, unusually large num- 
ber of men and women who are rendering a distinctively public 
service in the teaching profession and in the Christian Church. The 
past, the present, and the future generations of students have justi- 
fied and must justify the College. 


Fifty years of history has been written. That record, all who 
will can read. The record, if not spectacular, is, at least, substan- 
tial. The College, first of all has aimed to serve the needs of the 
community and in serving to uphold sound standards of scholarship 
and conduct and to maintain its loyalty to the Church and the 
fundamental principles of Christianity. It is realized that while 
much has been accomplished, much remains to be done. The College 
now enters upon its second half century with a full realization of the 
tasks confronting it. There is no tendency to minimize its problems 
but the record of the past gives confidence to the hope that with 
the support and. cooperation of the friends of the College it will go 
forward to even greater usefulness and service. To quote Mr. 
Joseph Newton Pew in a letter written late in his life to Isaac C. 


5 — 


Ketler, “If we all work together and work all the time we are sure 
to have a great College.” 


PRESIDENT KETLER: 


Among the great leaders of higher education in Western 
Pennsylvania, History will record the name of the next speaker. He 
is a product of higher education of this district and after rendering 
distinguished service in distant fields came back to be the leader of 
a great forward movement in the life our great neighboring Univer- 
sity. Few men can speak with more authority on the history of edu- 
cation in the Commonwealth than he. And it is with pleasure that 
I introduce Dr. Samuel B. McCormick, Chancellor Emeritus of the 
University of Pittsburgh, who will speak on the subject, “Fifty Years 
of Higher Education in Pennsylvania.” 


“FIFTY YEARS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN 
PENNSYLVANIA” 


ADDRESS 
By 
DR. SAMUEL BLACK McCORMICK 
Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh 


Mr. President and friends of Grove City College: I esteem 
it a valued privilege to have a part in these anniversary exercises. 
Grove City College in the visible and concrete expression of the 
work, covering a period of 37 years, of its founder and president, 
Isaac Conrad Ketler. Dr. Ketler took the theological course in 
Western Theological Seminary, receiving his degree in 1888: but 
it happened that a part of his course was taken with my own class 
(1890) and in this sense he was a classmate of mine. This ac- 
quaintance thus formed soon developed into friendship which re- 
mained unbroken until his death in 1913. Dr. Ketler was a man 
of rugged honesty, positive character, untiring industry, high ideals 
and lofty conception of the duty he owed to God and to his fellow- 
men. Neither Allegheny College nor Westminster was far distant, 
but he had in mind for the new school a service to the community 
and particularly, I think, to the public school system in the training 
of teachers of higher rank, which neither of these colleges or other 
colleges farther away had at that time even thought of rendering. 
The spirit of service to the community and to the Commonwealth, 
which he put into his college was one which was greatly needed 
then and is as greatly needed today. That spirit has grown as the 


oo Bee 


College has grown and under the administration of his son, Weir 
C. Ketler, it continues in all its original power, manifesting itself 
in a constantly increasing measure and variety of finely effective 
endeavor. I know no college which exceeds Grove City in its am- 
bition to render the largest possible good to those who come under 
its influence and to use its resources to its utmost in devotion to 
public welbeing. 


The class of 1880 to which I belong in Washington and Jef- 
ferson College entered upon its collegiate career in 1876, the year 
Dr. Ketler started the school at Grove City. The subject assigned 
to me, Higher Education in Pennsylvania During the Last Fifty 
Years, covers the exact period of my life, from my freshman year 
until today. For this reason I shall present very largely my own 
observations during this period, a method of presentation which will 
necessarily have its limitations but which will also have some ob- 
vious advantages as well. Even as a college student I recognized 
the fact that the American College, the distinctive educational crea- 
tion of the American people with a history of which any nation 
might be proud, was not making its work count for as much as it 
should. It was very early in my life after leaving College that I 
resolved that if ever the opportunity came to me, I should put 
forth effort to enlarge the field of its influence and to extend the 
reach of its beneficent activities. That opportunity did not come to 
me until 1897 and long before that time Dr. Ketler with much the 
same mind was actually doing what I had only dreamed. 


It is a notable fact that the changes in higher education which 
have come about in America have happened within this last half 
century. The curriculum of the College fifty years ago was with 
trifling exceptions, the curriculum of the College one hundred and 
fifty years ago. Twenty-five years ago in preparing a sketch of my 
Alma Mater I happened upon a comparison of Harvard, Princeton 
and Jefferson College in the fifties which showed that these three 
Colleges were substantially alike in faculty, student body and material 
equipment while now they are as unlike as three institutions of learn- 
ing could well be. The American College of fifty years ago and the 
American College of today are of course basically the same; but they 
have been affected by the spirit of a new age which came in after our 
civil war and which differed greatly from the period which preceded 
AU: 

Before 1800 the following Colleges were established in 
America: 


Nes 


a 
8. 


1. 1636 Harvard, now Harvard University. 

2. 1692-3 William and Mary. Now taking on a new and mod- 
ern form and curriculum. 

3. 1701 Yale. Now a University. 

4. 1746 Princeton. Now a College and Graduate School. 

5. 1753 University of Pennsylvania. Began in 1740. Char- 
tered 1753. Medical School 1765. Law Professorship 
1790. 

6. 1754 King’s College (Columbia). “Now a University. 

7. 1765 Brown. University in name only. 

8. 1766 Rutgen. 

9. 1769 Dartmouth. 

10. 1783 Dickinson College and Law School (1834-1890). 

11. 1787 Pittsburgh. Now a University. Academy 1787-1889. 
Western University of Pa. 1819-1908. Became Univer- 
sity 1892. University of Pittsburgh 1908. 

‘12. 1787 Washington and Jefferson. Jefferson Academy 17787. 
; Washington Academy 1793. Jefferson College 1802. 
Washington College 1806. W. & J. 1869. 

13. 1787 Franklin and Marshall. 
14. 1793 Williams. 
15. 1794 Tusculum (Tennessee) 
16. 1794 University of Tennessee. Now a University. 
17. 1794 Bowdoin. 
18. 1795 University of North Carolina. 
19. 1795 Union College. 
20. 1798 ‘Transylvania. 
The dates of the following may or may not be correct: 

21. 1696 St. Johns. Annapolis. 
22. 1742 Moravian College for Women. 
23. 1723 Washington (and Lee) 

1749) 
24. 1776 Hampton-Sidney. 
25. 1785 College of Charleston. 
26. 1791 University of Vermont. 


It will be noted that this list includes 26 Colleges of which 6 
to-wit—1. Pennsylvania 2. Dickinson 3. Pittsburgh 4. W. & J. 5. F. & 
A. M. 6. Moravian for Women, are in Pennsylvania. Added to these 
six the following came into existence up to and including 1876: 


1807 
1815 


Moravian College—Moravian ocecccccscssseeenesnensces Bethlehem 


Allegheny—Methodist onncecceccnccssssssssuncesssssnsensennees Meadville 


ALE Cae 


Li, 


Lo: 
24. 
Zon 
26. 
sHye 
28. 
rep 
30. 
Bil) 
S2} 
33: 
34. 


32 
36. 
ai 
38. 
BY: 
40. 


1826 
1832 
1833 
1842 
1846 
1846 
1849 
1850 
1852 
1853 


1856 
1855 


1858 
1863 


1862 
1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1867 
1867 
1869 
1869 
1869 
1870 
1876 


Lafayette—Presbytentan 4 en ee ee Easton 


Pennsylvania Col.—Lutheranr 22..cecseceeceseseeeseenteo Gettysburg 
Haverford— Friends yee ea ee ee Haverford 
Villa Nova (Augustian (Roman Catholic Villa ..... Nova 
BucknellBaptist ye ee eee Se ee Lewisburg 
St. Vincents—Roman Catholic (charter 1870) Beatty 
Waynesburg—Presbyteriay ccsccsesscesecceecsiree Waynesburg 
Geneva—Reformed Pres. oecconsmccsmecsne apeie). To Beaver Falls 
Westminster—United Pres. o..c.ccccssceee New Wilmington 
Beaver (Women)—Methodist. Now dead (or living in 


Jenkinstown School) 


Irving—Lutheran (dead) ccecccccseccssseccescenceee Mechanicsburg 
Albright--Evangelical 22) 2e 7s oo ee Myerstown 
(Founded 1881—Chartered 1895) 

Tusquehanna University—Lutheran ........... Lelins Grove 
Pennhsylvamig tated acme eth in ps State College 


(1855 Charter 1859. Farmers High School 1874. Charter: 
(“Penn State College”) 


Pennsylvania Military College .csccccccsscccsccsscescsemeeen Chester 
Swarthmore-—Hrends i Vain coe as a Oe Swarthmore 
Lehigh University (Charter 1866) ccc Bethlehem 
Lebanon Valley—United Brethren on Annville 
Muhlenburg—Lutheran 2. ccccccccscssecssecsessmseeseeseee Allentown 
(66?) Cedar Crest (Women)—Reformed ....... Allentown 
La Salle—Roman Catholic ..ccccccccecccscssscssnseneee Philadelphia 
Ursinus---Reformed i. ya. eee Collegeville 
Wilson (women)—Presbyterian 00000... Chambersburg 
Pennsylvania (women)—Presbyterian ........... Pittsburgh 
hiel—-buthetatl alee eee Fee ee ee Greenville 
Grove City—-Presbyterian spree oe Grove City 


From 1876 to the present six colleges have received charters, 
making forty in all, to wit. 


1878 
1878 
1880 
1884 
1883 
1905 


Juniata-—Dunkard eos See Huntingdon 
Duquesne University—R. Catholic ow... Pittsburgh 
Bryn Mawt-s-P rien iis Mn eB aoa Bryn Mawr 
Temple University—Baptist 2 ecccscceccsescncss Philadelphia 
Seton Hill (women)—Roman Cath. ........... Greensburg 
Carnegie Institute of Technology ou... Pittsburgh 


(If Drexel Institute (1898) is of college rank these fig- 
ures should be seven and forty-one) 


So far as institutions of learning are concerned, only six 


dy eae 


have come into existence since Grove City and while one of these was 
Bryn Mawr in the East, a college distinguished for its devotion to 


scholarship and another of these was Carnegie Institute of Tech- 
nology in the West, an institution which has already contributed 
much to practical science, yet it is obvious that it is not in the estab- 
lishment of new institutions of learning we are to find the story of 
what has happened in the realm of higher education in Pennsylvania 
in the last fifty years. 

Rather in my opinion that story is the story of the University 
and of the trend of education following the founding of the Univer- 
sity in America. When the centennial year dawned there was no 
University in this land of universal education. The nearest approach 
to it was the University of Pennsylvania, whose Medical school was 
established as a part of the University in 1765 and which instituted 
a professorship of Law in 1790. Yet even in this most ancient Uni- 
versity the relationship in 1876 between the scholastic and the pro- 
fessional parts of the University was too loose and casual to justify 
any serious claim that Pennsylvania had yet become a University in 
fact. Before the year closed, however, the University had come into 
being in the near-by city of Baltimore when Johns Hopkins was 
born. Here was America’s first University and out of it has come 
much of what has influenced and directed the course of events from 
that time forward. This is not the place to tell the story of the 
early beginnings of this famous University under the presidency of 
Daniel Coit Gilman; the assembling of a small group of eminent 
scholars from America and Europe, the flocking of young men avid 
of knowledge and ambitious of scholarship, to sit at the feet of these 
distinguished men; the researches; the seminars, the productive re- 
sult of these studies published and given to the world to fire other 
youth with like aspirations; but out of it came the real University 
of Pennsylvania; and Harvard and Yale in 1887, and even Princeton 
(1896) anticipating the Graduate school which might justify the 
name of University: then Clark University (1889) and the Uni- 
versity of Chicago (1892): then the State Universities, which had 
the name from their beginning but which were merely Colleges sup- 
ported by public taxation. The University of Pennsylvania had 
just removed (1872) to West Philadelphia and was given the op- 
portunity of which it quickly availed itself, not only to expand its 
curriculum but to develop its scholarship as well. In 1876 it had the 
College of Liberal Arts, its law, its medicine, and its University 
hospital: it was ready for its own scientific school, which included 


a 


Chemistry, Engineering and Architecture; then Music: then Dent- 
istry: then the Wharton school: then Graduate school: then Vet- 
erinary and the rest. Under the same inspiration Dr. Holland gath- 
ered under the Western University of Pennsylvania charter, schools 
of Medicine, Law, Dentistry and Pharmacy. No one can forget 
how in Clark University, under the inspiring leadership of G. Stanley 
Hall, who gathered also scholars from the whole University world, 
the story of Johns Hopkins was repeated: how when Senator Stan: 
ford gave millions for the founding of a new University (1891) on 
the Pacific Coast, David Starr Jordan took with him from Indiana 
University a group of brilliant youth who became the nucleus of 
another coterie of scholars: and how William Rainy Harper went 
out from Yale to try the experiment of establishing on new lives, in 
the second city of America, a University which, with almost un- 
limited financial resources, could select from any other University its 
most brilliant men and set them to work to establish there a center 
of learning of scholarship and inspiration which in time would make 
an irresistible appeal to the youth of the middle west. What a mar- 
vellous providence that there was ready for this awakening a Alman, 
a White, a Harris, a McCosh, a Hall, an Elliott, a Harper, a Jordan, 
a Pepper, a Low, a Butler, an Angell, a Northrup and the others 
who caught the splendid vision and who were capable of creating, 
under the inspiration of this vision, the American University. 


THE COLLEGE AND THE COMMUNITY 


In 1876 the Colleges of Pennsylvania like all other colleges 
of the land, were Colleges and nothing more. The towns in which 
they were located were endured if they were endurable: but they 
were only a convenience to furnish dormitories for the students whose 
only refuge was the homes of the citizens. It did not even occur to 
the Colleges that any duty was owed to the community in return for 
the taxes of which they were exempt. The town was universally 
at violent odds with the gown. A sharp line was drawn between 
the College and the community. The College was superior and 
admitted it with a somewhat supercilious air which put the common 
people outside of its sympathy and life. It was a college, an insti- 
tution which cared for scholarship and culture and confined its efforts 
to inculcate a love for these only in the students who were in the 
class rooms. It seemed to care no more for Education as such than 
it did for making steel rails or threshing machines. The public 
schools and their teachers were foreign to their interests and normal 
schools were despised as an inferior institution. Professional schools, 


ONY bake 


then almost entirely propriety, and separate were of the same order 
as the mill and the manufactory and not educational institutions at 
all. The curriculum was Latin, Greek, Mathematics and Philosophy 


with opportunity for French and German. The student was sup- 
posed already to know English tho occasionally there was a professor 
who loved literature and inspired in his students a love for it like 
his own. Chemistry was taught from a text book, the students 
privileged to watch the professors perform certain spectacular experi- 
ments which sometimes were successful. Physics was a form of 
mathematics and botany was an attempt to verfy the text book by an 
appeal to nature. Biology was only a pious attempt to disprove 
Darwin’s origin of species and the text book which was most effec- 
tive in this was written by Agassiz, the really great teacher in Har- 
vard. In Economics the students learned the righteousness of free 
trade, because all the text books were written by College professors 
who believed a tariff an invention of Satan, a little later going out 
from College to learn quite quickly that what they learned was not 
so. Psychology, what there was of it, was entirely introspective. 
Ethics was a closed in affair which had nothing for the students after 
the first hundred pages for it was yea and amen from the first word 
to the last. The way I have described this curriculum seems only 
to disparage it. I have the intention rather to indicate its narrow 
limitations. As a fact it was much better than it would appear from 
this description of it. If the College knew no science, the Colleges 
had in them such men as Gibbs, Henry and others, and conceived 
the physical world a mere convenience to be endured, very much as 
the theologians considered the human body, yet it did have a high 
regard for the human mind and spent effort to train men to think— 
with I sometimes imagine, considerably greater success than Colleges 
are achieving today. If the College of 1876 had a narrow curriculum, 
it stuck to it, with few excursions into the unknown, and the stu- 
dents knew a whole lot about it when they got through. Not to 
disparage, therefore, but to exhibit is my aim. When I remember 
my own father who was physician, who prepared me for the sopho- 
more class in College, who knew all the mathematics taught in his day, 
whose light reading was Plato and Horace and Telemaque in the 
original, who was a trained chemist and was accustomed to make his 
comments on Joseph Cook’s lectures on the Trinity in chemical for- 
mulae, I realize that the College of the period before 1876 did for 
the student some things the modern college does not do; but the 
college of today is a vastly different institution, even if some believe 


pore 


it is not better. It teaches English even if it has abandoned Greek. 
It teaches Science, and employs a scientific method, even if it makes 
mathematics elective. It assumes that its graduates can find a noble 
field for services in the public school system and in the world at 
large and prepares them for their altruistic life career. It covers a 
broad field in Ethics and fortifies the student against the time when 
he will face the hard problems of practical life. If it does not 
teach. philosophy any more effectively, it does open to him the powers 
of the mind and does give him a stronger hold on the realities of 
life. The world is no longer a neglected physical thing but is a 
throbbing bundle of energies which man must learn to know and 
to subdue to his own intelligent will. If it does not give the student 
the same mastery of the classics, it does make clear to him that 
language and mathematics and science and philosophy alike are 
but instruments for the revealing and development of his powers of 
personality and are to be used for the noble and inspiring purpose 
of enabling him to accomplish a finer work in the service of his 
fellowmen. Personally, I think the College today is a vastly better 
institution than it was in 1876, wider in its outlook, broader in its 
sympathies, more intelligent in its objectives, wiser in its curriculum 
‘and more effective in its achievements: but whatever may or may 
not be true as to this, the college today is an altogether different insti- 
tution from what it was in 1876. 


John Henry Newman said in 1852 “If then a practical end 
must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training 
good members of society. Its art is the art of social life, and its end 
is fitness for the world. It neither confines its views to particular 
professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or inspires genius 
on the other. Works of genius fall under no art; heroic minds 
come under no rule; a university is not a birthplace of poets or im- 
mortal authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or con- 
querors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotles, or 
Newtons, of Napoleons or Washingtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares, 
though such miracles of nature it has before now contained within 
its precincts. Nor is it content on the other hand with forming the 
critic or the experimentalist, the economist or the Engineer, though 
such, too, it includes within its scope. But a University training is 
the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at 
raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, 
at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popu- 
lar enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlarge- 


ate brake 


ment and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise 
of political power and refining intercourse of private life. 
It shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw 
himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his own; 
how to influence them; how to come to an understanding with them; 
how to bear with them. He is at home in any society; he has com- 
mon ground with every class; he knows when to speak and when 
to be silent; he is able to converse; he is able to listen; he can ask a 
question pertinently, and gain a lesson reasonably when he has noth- 
ing to impart himself; he is ever ready yet never in the way; he is 
a pleasant companion, and a comrade you can depend upon; he 
knows when to be serious and when to trifle with gracefulness 
and to be serious with effect. He has the repose of mind which 
lives in itself, while it lives in the world, and which has resources 
for its happiness at home when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift 
which serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, without 
which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and dis- 
appointment have a charm.” 


Herbert Spencer in his tractate called Education, the education 
which is of most worth, states in order of importance, the activities 
which constitute human life: 


“1. Those activities which directly minister to self preservation. 

2. Those activities which, by securing the necessaries of life, in- 
directly minister to self-preservation. 

3. Those activities which have for their end the rearing and 
- discipline of off-spring. 

4. Those activities which are involved in the maintenance of 
proper social and political relations. 

5. Those miscellaneous activities which make up the leisure 
part of life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings.” 

John Stuart Mill unites these two interpretations of Education 
in his St. Andrews rectorial address of 1867: 

‘Whatever helps to shape the human being—to make the indi- 
vidual what he is or hinder his being what he is not, is part of his 
education. Education in the narrower sense is the culture which 
each generation purposely gives to those who are to be its successors 
in order to qualify them for at least keeping up, and if possible for 
raising, the level of improvement which has been attained. Univer- 
sities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men 
for some special mode of gaining a livelihood. Their object is not 
to make skillful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and 


cultivated human beings. What professional men should carry away 
with them from a University is not professional knowledge, but that 
which should direct the use of their professional knowledge, and 
bring the light of general culture to illumine the technicalities of a 
special pursuit. Men may be competent lawyers without general edu- 
cation, but it depends on general education to make them philosophic 
lawyers—who demand, and are capable of apprehending principles, 
instead of merely cramming their memory with details. And so of all 
other useful pursuits, mechanical included, Education makes a man a 
more intelligent shoemaker, if that be his occupation, but not by 
teaching him to make shoes; it does so by the mental exercise it 
gives, and the habits it impresses. It is a very imperfect Education 
which trains the intelligence only, but not the will. No one can dis- 
pense with an Education directed expressly to the moral as well as the 
intellectual part of his being. The moral or religious influence which 
a University can exercise consists less in any express teaching, than in 
the pervading tone of the place. Whatever it teaches it should teach 
as penetrated by a sense of duty; it should present all knowledge as 
chiefly a means of worthiness in life, given for the double purpose 
of making each of us practically useful to our fellow-creatures, and 
of elevating the character of the species itself-exalting and dignifying 
our nature. A University exists for the purpose of laying open to 
each succeeding generation, as far as the conditions of the care admit, 
the accumulated treasure of the thoughts of mankind.” 


The biological aspect of Education insists upon the real and 
practical as the only rational basis of the speculative and the ideal, 
that the fundamental utility of it shall have recognition; and that 
it shall develop self-expression and responsiveness as of primary 
worth. 


Perhaps G. Stanley Hall has best expressed the psychological 
aspects of Education “Experiments on the senses, motion, time of 
psychic actions, fatigue, pain, rhythm, etc., now take most of the 
vital problems of perception, association, attention, and will, into 
the laboratory; they quadruple the power of introspection while ob- 
viating all its dangers; they shed new light into dark corners; and 
they have already reconstructed many old doctrines. . . . In the mod- 
ern laboratory, conditions, whether of a bit of nerve fibre or cell of a 
normal human being are varied indefinitely and really enlarge human 
experiences. Men sleep on balances with apparatus that record the 
slightest change of pulse, respiration, circulation, heat; they test 
themselves with mild doses of narcotics, tonics and other nervines; 


AT 


they multiply or reduce air-pressures over the entire dermal sur- 
face; they select a square inch of skin, and with every known test, 
educate it for months; they fatigue definite muscle-groups; they 
measure the exact time and force of memory and will; they register 
diurnal and even monthly perodicies; they explore the hypnotic state; 
they apply the various forms of electricity, light, heat, sound, with 
chemicals for taste and smell.” 


And about the sociological aspect, Professor Hanus says: 

“Education demanded by a Democratic society today is an 
education which prepares a youth to overcome the inevitable dif- 
ficulties that stand in the way of his material and spiritual advance- 
ment; an education that from the beginning promotes his normal 
physical development through the most salutary environment and 
appropriate physical training; that opens his mind and lets the world 
in through every natural power of observation and assimilation; 
that cultivates hand power as well as head power; that inculcates 
the appreciation of beauty in nature and art, and inserts on the per- 
formance of duty to self and to others; an education that in youth 
and manhood, while continuing the work already done, enables the 
youth to discover his own powers and limitations, and that impels 
him through productive effort to look forward to a life of habitual 
achievement with his head or hands or both; that enables him to 
analyze for himself the intellectual, economic and political problems 
of his time, and that gives the insight, the interest, and the powers 
to deal with them as successfully as possible for his own advance- 
ment and for social service; and finally, that causes him to realize 
that the only way to win and retain the prizes of life, namely, 
wealth, culture, leisure, honor, is an ever-increasing usefulness, and 
this makes him feel that a life without growth and without service 
is not worth living. The only real preparation for life’s duties, 
opportunities, and privileges in participation in them, so far as they 
can be rendered intelligible, interesting and accessible to children 
and youth of school age; and hence the first duty of all education is 
to provide this participation as fully and freely as possible. From 
the beginning such an education cannot be limited to school arts— 
reading, writing, ciphering. It must acquaint the pupil with his 
material and social environment, in order that every avenue to know- 
ledge may be opened to him and every incipient power receive appro- 
priate cultivation.” 

While I shall in the remaining part of this address refer to 
changes of a specific kind which have taken place, I wish to insist 


med 4 ea 


that the real and enduring changes have been the quiet permeating 
of the entire educational process by the conceptions and ideals of 
the men who since the middle of the nineteenth century caught the 
new and higher vision and translated it into a program. As a re- 
sult interest in higher education has vastly increased; the creators of 
great fortunes have been inspired to give untold millions so that 
these may in turn become producers of educated men and women; 
colleges have come to look out beyond themselves, below, to increase 
the efficiency of the secondary schools, above, to encourage pro- 
fessional schools to incorporate more largely the university spirit, 
and into the whole field of education to rejoice in the increase of 
resources wherever endowments may come, whether the individual 
institution shares in the good fortune or not; in short, a new and 
vital spirit of altruistic endeavor for the public weal has displaced 
the narrow and selfish spirit which once so largely prevailed. This 
is what I see looking on what has happened in the last half century, 
a change marvellous in itself and potential of still more wonderful 
things in the immediate future. 


SPECIFIC CHANGES 


I have left for myself an inadequate part of my time in which 
to refer to the specific changes which have taken place in this fifty 
year period but which should have particular, as over against the 
general mention. Some of these concern the public school system 
of the Commonwealth with reflex influence upon the Colleges and 
Universities. 

1. The outstanding fact already alluded to more than once, 
is the realization upon the part of higher education that it has rela- 
tionships and obligations which cannot be ignored. It is a section 
and only a section of a great system and this has come to consciousness 
only in the period we are considering. The public school system of 
Pennsylvania dates from 1835 and was at that time a marvellous 
movement forward in Education. As time passed defects developed 
and in 1911 the Enactment of the school code gave another forward 
impulse like to the original one in 1835. The reorganization of the 
state department, the utilization by the Commonwealth of the 
state normal schools and the raising of their standards of instruc- 
tion; the remarkable development of secondary education and the 
multiplication of high schools; and the insistence upon college prepa- 
ration even perhaps the bachelor’s degree in order to teach in their 
schools, constitutes one of the most absorbingly interesting chapters 
in the history of the Commonwealth. It all happened under my own 


wees, tae 


observation and in fifty years. In 1876 if the public schools of 
Pennsylvania were dying of thirst it was not the college which 
would have brought the cup of cold water. It was busy with its 
own job and this job had nothing to do with the schools. In the 
change which has come about higher education in part cause and part 
effect—that is, higher education inspired the progress, trained the 
teachers, and suggested perhaps the curriculum; and then, in turn, the 
new and more advanced requirements compelled higher education 
to adopt new and advanced methods and standards and above all 
a new spirit of cooperation, a new sense of responsibility, a new 
conception of relationship, a new understanding of its function in a 
process of which it was only a part though an extremely important 
one. 


COLLEGE AND THE PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL 


2. Another phase of this same awakening was the develop- 
ment of the idea that the college did not end the educational pro- 
cess but that there was beyond it another step of that progress for 
which it was also responsible—namely the professional. Fifty years 
ago there were theological schools—the only educational institution 
which still insists on being purely and solely technical—and the 
college existed largely to supply these schools with men adequately 
trained for this advanced study. Fifty years ago there were medical 
schools—with few exceptions detached independent, proprietary, and 
conducted for profit. The college had no interest in nor relation- 
ship with these. Fifty years ago there were few schools of law— 
most young men registered and studied with preceptors, as I did 
forty-eight years ago, and of course the College had no interest in, 
nor relationship with these. Today the proprietary medical schools 
are all gone; law schools, a part of the university, are universal and 
to them prospective lawyers go for their preparation; new profes- 
sions have come into being, dentistry, pharmacy, engineering, edu- 
cation, business, accounting—and for all of these higher education 
has responsibility and recognizes it—a responsibility which consists 
at least in this—that “what professional men should carry away with 
them from a University is not professional knowledge but that 
which should direct the use of their professional knowledge and 
bring the light of general culture to illumine the technicalities of a 
special pursuit.” So large a place has higher education in the pro- 
fessions, that many of our graduate schools are engaged almost ex- 
clusively in the training of teachers who expect to make teaching a 
profession in school, college, university, and in administering the 


ai4o2- 


system of public instruction. In this place, on this occasion, I need 
not enlarge upon this even if time permitted; for when I recall the 
number of men and women who have gone out from this College, 
not into the ministry only but into teaching, I know that one great 
purpose inspired Isaac Conrad Ketler fifty years ago and that was 
to do this very thing for public education and for the ennobling of 
the professions in our country. . 


NEW METHODS INTRODUCED IN SCIENCE 


3. I have witnessed in higher education in Pennsylvania 
another change—almost all of it taking place in the last fifty years— 
namely, the substitution of science for the classics and the laboratory 
with its scientific method for the form of instruction which had pre- 
vailed theretofore. This change is so radical as in itself to constitute 
a new period in higher education. I do not mean that chemistry 
and physics and biology and geology and astronomy and the other 
sciences had not been a part of the college curriculum. They were. 
But the method of teaching them and the change in the method 
of teaching all other subjects of the curriculum, resulting therefrom, 
was a complete departure from what had previously prevailed. 
Fifty years ago the College did not know what research was and 
had no particular concern with the extension of the field of know- 
ledge. Under the new impulse research lies at the very foundation 
of higher education and in the primary cause of all that has taken 
place in modern times. Fifty years ago the application of science to 
industry was not thought of; today our Mellon Institute and simi- 
lar departments in other institutions, are solving the problems of 
industry and multiplying its products marvellously. If there 
was a Pittsburgh in 1876 it was a city of iron and glass and other 
manufactures built by trial and error; today it is a community of 
industries proceeding out of the University laboratory. Fifty years 
ago higher education had to do with the inculcation of what was 
known; today it deals with the science of living. The scientist of 
today is not concerned with establishing a thesis; he is seeking after 
the facts whose ultimate is truth. We hear him abused as a des- 
troyer of faith and as a foe of religion; instead he is engaged in find- 
ing out what is and leaves to others the interpretations in which he 
is not interested or for which he may have neither the time nor the 
capacity. But his method is becoming the method of every seeker 
after truth, in every realm of human interest, and is gradually 
transforming both the material world and the world of human 
experience into a laboratory out of which eventually will come the 


feel Uh 


facts which, interpreted by high-minded and spiritually endowed 
souls, will lift men to higher thinking and finer living. It is now to 
the University and its laboratory all men come in faith that the 
solution of their problems will sooner or later be found. It has 
discovered the bacilli of virulent diseases, supplied the anti-toxin 
and has contributed to health and the prolongation of human life. 
It has delved into the records of the past, reading the story of how 
this planet came to its present form and home life in all its forms has 
evolved; and reading the story, too, of the doings of men so that 
history has become for the first time a reliable guide in instructing 
rational life and helping to direct affairs for the well being of gen- 
erations yet to come. The State appeals to the College and Univer- 
sity to help in the problem of government and economics and So- 
ciety. All this the teacher of youth is doing in these institutions of 
learning, and all this wealth of knowledge and power youth today 
has at his hand as he engages in preparation for the life he will live, 
more nobly and more beneficiently, we trust, than was possible for 
those of us who will shortly celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of 
graduation from College. 


HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 


4. Another development in the last fifty years is the higher 
education of women. If Pennsylvania had the first University in 
America, it also had the first college for women, for the Moravian 
College for women seems to date from 1742. Beaver College, whose 
work at Beaver ceased only a short time ago, was chartered in 1853: 
the Pittsburgh Female College did excellent work for years: Cedar 
Crest was organized in 1867: Wilson College and Pennsylvania Col- 
lege for Women were both chartered in 1869: Bryn Mawr in 1880: 
and Seton Hill, chartered only six or eight years ago, began its work 
in 1883. But as a fact, practically the entire history of the higher 
education for women has been written in the last fifty years. It is 
probably not an over-statement, made however without thought of 
instituting a comparison, to say that along with the first university 
and the first woman's college, Pennsylvania also has the most dis- 
tinctively scholarly college for women in America. Neither should 
we forget that women have long been admitted to most of the Col- 
leges and that in the last quarter century they have had a place in 
these not less important than that held by men. In the University 
of Pittsburgh there are perhaps more hundreds of women students 
than there were individuals when I became Chancellor in 1904. 
What the schools and departments of education and the Graduate 


Athy. | on 


schools of the Commonwealth are doing for young women in train- 
ing them for the highest positions in the public schools deserves a 
chapter by itself. 

Lack of time forbids anything but mention of Athletics which 


fifty years ago were in their infancy in College, of the pension sys 
tem for college and university professors set in motion by the Car- 
negie Foundation and now all but universal; of the provision, both 
in instruction and in discipline for the physical health of students; 
of the chairs established in Colleges and universities, for religion and 
ethics; of the increase of salaries, both in public schools and higher 
institutions of learning, so that the teaching profession is coming 
into a new position of dignity, respect and social importance; of the 
endowments which in these last years have come to our colleges, 
constituting a new epoch in philanthropy and creating vastly en- 
larged facilities for education; of the unprecedented influx of stu- 
dents into our colleges and universities, to the extent that if in fifty 
years our population in Pennsylvania has more than doubled, our 
school population has trebled, our school enrollment has quadrupled, 
our college students have increased seventeen fold, from 3057 in 
1875 to 52,624 in 1924: of the improved mora! and religious life 
in college over that of former years, a fact in spite of irresponsible 
and oft repeated statements to the contrary: of the extension of 
instruction in that our universities and colleges are carrying their 
class room work out into communities far removed: of the College 
and University Council, established in 1895, which regulated the 
degree-conferring privilege, prevents the abuse of this provilege and 
the establishment of inferior institutions, the functions of this coun- 
cil now exercised by the State Board of Education; of the summer 
sessions, now quite general whereby students and particularly teach- 
ers have the opportunity to spend the summer months in profitable 
study: of the cooperative and clinical method, reviving, under the 
greatly improved conditions, the preceptorial method once prevailing 
in law and medicine, whereby the student of engineering, education, 
business administration, dentistry, pharmacy, etc., may unite study 
with practice in an effective way: of the standards of admission to 
college, much higher, and the quality of teaching, much better: of 
the professional schools which have become practically graduate in- 
stitutions: of evening schools, taking an ever increasingly important 
place in this larger institution: of the exchange of professors, both 
at home and abroad and the interchange of students: of the alumni 
spirit and the tremendously important part alumni are taking in 


4 5 


increasing the resources of the colleges and universities and in serv- 
ing upon boards of trustees: the large number of foundations estab- 
lished for the benefit of students and the colleges and universities: 
the Rhodes scholarships and the influence they have had, not only 
upon American scholarship but upon English-speaking peoples and 


their relations: and so on almost infinitum. 


In all this Grove City College has had an honorable and 
useful part. The lad of 23, only started in his own education at 
that time, did not dream of the great thing he was doing when he 
gathered here fifty years ago, that small group of boys and girls 
»which formed the beginning of this college: but he was initiating 
an undertaking which was to make history in fifty years and which 
is destined to make still greater history in the next half century. 


For myself and for the University of Pittsburgh, whose official rep- 
resentative I have been appointed, I bring felicitations upon the 
achievements of these years and genuine good wishes for the in- 
creased usefulness and prosperity of Grove City College in the years 
to come. All honor to Isaac Conrad Ketler and those who helped 
him to realize his dream; and all honor to his son and successor, Weir 
Carlyle Ketler and those who are helping him to make a better and 
greater college upon the foundations laid in faith fifty years ago. 


EREDIDENT KETLER: 


In the history of our modern civilization, as well as in the 
history of our own Country, the school has been dependent on the 
Church for its origin and inspiration and for much of its support. 
Grove City College has frankly recognized its debt to the Church 
and has ever had as its aim, the development of Christian character 
as well as knowledge and intellectual power. It is therefore most 
fitting that we should have on our program today one whose interest 
in young men and women has extended beyond the formal boundaries 
of the Church and has led him to give his time and powers to the 
leadership of the educational agencies of the Church of which he is 
a member. We are very happy to have with us Dr. Hugh Thomp- 
son Kerr, Pastor of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church of Pitts- 
burgh and also Chairman of the Board of Christian Education of 
the Presbyterian Church. He will speak to us on “The Church 
and Higher Education”. 


alia; pate 


“THE CHURCH AND HIGHER EDUCATION” 


ADDRESS 
By 
REVEREND DR. HUGH THOMPSON KERR 


Minister of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church 
President of the Board of Christian Education of the Presbyterian 
Church 


Eighty-five years before the founding of Harvard, the first 
institution of learning established in this country, and 150 years 
before the founding of Yale, five institutions of higher learning had 
been established on the South American continent. The University 
of San Marcos at Lima was established as early as 1551 and the 
University of Mexico in 1552. University education had gotten 
away to a long lead in the Spanish American countries. If edu- 
cation, as has been said, is the key that unlocks the door of civili- 
zation, then we ought to have had, in the Southern continent, the 
finest civilization of our Western world. And yet the republics of 
South America are considered among the most backward nations of 
the world. There is much illiteracy and much superstition there, 
and education, which followed the traditions of those early uni- 
versities, ran out into the sand. 


The educational ideal which was there established was too 
limited, too restricted, dealing almost entirely with other worldly 
subjects, looking upon the natural world with hesitation and crown- 
ing theology queen over all the sciences. Education which deals 
with only one department !of life always ends in obscuring some of 
the finer issues. It was so with the ancient learning of the Chinese 
and is true also of the restricted and limited educational ideals of the 
Mohammedan world. It is impossible to neglect the world that 
lies about us and the laws that operate without bringing tragic con- 
sequences upon ourselves. Like the old abbe who was found in the 
Rocky Mountains enjoying the glories of the world and its magnifi- 
cance, we must know this life well and understand the operation of 
its laws if we are to;enjoy the world that lies beyond the horizon. 

We have swung, in our day, to the other extreme, and as 
Dr. Matthews of Kings College, London, has said, for the first time 
in history we are making the experiment of trying to make per- 
manent a purely secular state. Such an experiment has never before 
been tried. Always there has been related to the civilizations of the 


egies 


past some common belief in the supernatural, but we are trying to 
develop a civilization on the theory that there is no necessary con- 
nection between civilization and religious faith, We have not yet 
established such a civilization, but we are experimenting with it. 
Many of our educational institutions have not yet sold their birth- 
right of spiritual freedom, but there is a tendency in many of our 
large universities to overlook the spiritual background and deal 
merely with things as they are. The battle today in our educational 
institutions is in the realm not of physical science but of psychology, 
and we are face to face with the problem of substituting for con- 
sciousness and personality a mechanistic view of the universe which 
has little regard for anything that is personal or spiritual. We are 
being told that the only permanent thing in the world is some form 
of energy. Matter itself has been reduced to energy and personality 
is only a refined form of energy. It is the atom or the electron or 
some knot in the ether that is permanent and such a theory of edu- 
cation, if persisted in and carried to its legitimate conclusion, will 
undo all our ideals and bring us to a disastrous end. It is too limited, 
too restricted, and is blind to the larger and finer issues of life. 


It is not necessary to argue here for the existence of another 
form of permanency in life which we call personality, and personality 
ought to be the ultimate end in all education. It has always been 
the standard by which nations and civilizations have been judged. 
Nations live by the names that endure in their records and not by 
the monuments or monoliths which they erect. The nation that 
lives is the nation that calls its roll of heroes, that erects its West- 
minster Abbey and records in its Hall of Fame the names of those 
who have lifted the nation to a higher level. Florence and Venice 
are equally magnificent in their architecture and monuments, but we 
love Florence best because with her the names of the great are asso- 
ciated, and when we think of her we think of Dante, Giotto, Michael 
Angelo and Savonarola. The nation that thinks by erecting some 
Tower of Babel she will enter into immortality is always mistaken. 
Civilization cannot be erected by brick and mortar, and all our mod- 
ern Towers of Babel that are built merely of things will perish. Al 
fred Austin has said that we have not outgrown our Babel building, 
and that men will continue to build towers as long as they forget 
God. Institutions that keep the spiritual viewpoint are the best 
asset of the nation, for out from those institutions come personalities 
that are in touch with life that is and life that ought to be. 


We associate personality with power. These are days when we 


maou, 


speak in terms of power, and the great problem of the modern world 
is the release of power—water power, electric power, chemical power 
—and we are being taught today that there are untapped resources 


of power within one’s own personality that may be released through 
proper understanding and proper education. A scientist has re- 
cently experimented on three young men. They were given the 
conventional tests and then they were hypnotized and told that 
they were physically weak. Then their strength was again tested, 
and under the suggestion of weakness their physical power dropped 
30 percent. Then under the same hypnotic spell they were told that 
they possessed unlimited power and when the tests were made their 
strength rose to 40 per cent above normal. They were more than 
one-third stronger than they had ever known. Where did that 
extra strength come from? Not from the outside but from within 
the resources of those young men themselves. There are within 
each one of us vast reservoirs of energy if we could but release them. 
That is what the scientist is doing. He is releasing radio power, 
electric power, atomic power, and the business of education is to 
release the hidden forces of personality, faith and hope and love, 
and let them flow out for the healing of the world. 


Personality is associated with life, and when we speak of life 
we think in terms of relationship. The more contacts we have in 
life che deeper and broader our personalities are. The more of cul- 
ture we touch the more cultured we are. We are hearing a good 
deal in our day concerning cross-fertilization of cultures, meaning 
that it is necessary that the Orient shall have contact with the Occi- 
dent and that the culture of the East shall mingle with the culture 
of the West and bring forth a higher and better culture. What if 
there is an environment that is entirely spiritual? How poor and 
limited and weak our culture will be if it merely touches the things 
that are material and perish with use, and how rich and fertile that 
culture must be which is in touch with the things of the spirit. After 
all, personality in touch with the spiritual will do more for the 
world than ail the battle lines of far flung armies. History is full of 
examples of the dominance ‘of personality over the forces of life. 
The far flung Empire of Rome, with its vast colonial dependencies, 
fades away and out of that civilization there rises a single person- 
ality that endures and turns the current of history out of its chan- 
nel. Personality is associated with life that touches the spiritual 
world. 


We associate personality finally with service. In its lower 


———t)(}—— 


form we think of life as the survival of the fittest, but in its 
higher order we come in contact with life that lives for others. The 
highest personality is God. He is the only perfect personality, for in 
Him thought and will and feeling mingle and operate, in perfect 
harmony. And of Him it is written that “God so loved the world 
that He gave.” True personality thinks in ‘terms of service. It 
does not seek to get, it strives to give. It does not seek to acquire 
so much as it seeks to contribute what it has for the welfare of 
others. 

This is the true educational ideal. Education is not for the 
building of life. It is a far better thing to make a life than to make 
a living. On every hand we are told that education wins the prizes 
of life and a place in “Who’s Who In America;” that in the end 
it outruns in the acquiring of wealth, the common uneducated crowd. 
That is a poor, low ideal. The school or college that is doing its 
best for the nation is turning out young men and women whose 
personalities have been so cultured that they believe not only in 
things as they are, but in the world that lies beyond, and more than 
ever before the nation needs good men, and if it has good men its 
future is secure. “Get your man,” says Thomas Carlyle in his 
incisive way, “and all’s got.” 

We congratulate Grove City on the attainment of fifty years 
of service. It is an institution like the world is the hope of the 
church and the hope of the nation. We pray that in the next fifty 
years there may be the same loyalty to the church, the same sincerity 
of purpose and the same fidelity in the things of the spirit to him 
whom we call Lord. 


BENEDICTION 
REVEREND DR. WILLIAM E. PURVIS 
College Pastor, Grove City College 


Wednesday, June 16, 1926 


THE COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 
June 16, 1926 by the 
HONORABLE CLYDE KELLY 
Representative of the Thirty-Third Congressional District 


of Pennsylvania 


THE VOICE THAT BEAUTIFIES THE LAND 
President Ketler, graduates of the class of 1926 and friends. It 


ee ong 


is an inspiration to have a part in this notable commencement oc- 
casion. In order to be here I left Washington last night after a 
strenuous day in the U. S. Capitol, the oldest building in the world 
which has been continuously the meeting place of a representative 
assembly. 


However, that Capitol and the ideals of democracy which it 
embodies, would be impossible without educational institutions. Only 
an enlightened people can rule themselves. 

I have been delighted with the expression of American ideals 
by these two honor graduates who have spoken so splendidly of the 
history of human liberty and the true meaning of a college educa- 
tion. 

It is high time that we deal as they have done with fundamentals 
and separate the essential things from the non-essentials. 

Sometime ago I witnessed the most marvellous industrial pro- 
cess I have ever seen—the making of radium. 

Six hundred tons of carnotite ore from Colorado were placed 
in huge vats and covered with 600 tons of powerful chemicals. 
Through complicated refining operations this great bulk was reduced 
to a quarter of a ton of material. It was then placed in kettles and 
boiled until evaporation had performed its work. This was repeated 
many ‘times until at last there remained a residue of a teaspoonful 
of radium. 


Twelve hundred tons reduced to a single gram but the essence 
thus secured was the most wonderful and precious element known 
to science. 

That radium is the philosopher’s stone sought by the alchemists 
of old. It has the power to break up atoms and transmute metals. 
It is a radiant body sending forth sparkling particles. Put that radium 
on a cancerous growth on the skin and those sparks beat down 
through the tissues, destroying the disease cells but working no in- 
jury to the good cells. 

Radium is a miracle worker but after all it is only educated 
carnotite ore. For education itself is the development of the inher- 
ent qualities in the individual. Education is never a pouring in from 
without; it is a developing from within. And there must be the 
spark within or the educational process will be as disappointing as 
though the scientists tried to extract a gram of radium from six 
tons of common field stones. 

Grove City College for fifty years has been a great refining 
plant. Into its portals has come youth, vibrant with potentialities, 


—52— 


but undeveloped and unconcentrated for action 

Through the years of study and training those possibilities have 
been discovered and developed. On successive commencement days 
young men and women have issued out into active life, equipped to 
radiate enlightening, uplifting influences through every circle of 
which they formed a part. 


In so far as they have proved worthy of their opportunities 
they have helped swell the community and national voice to a clear, 
vibrant chorus of justice, patriotism and true Americanism. 

Before William Penn and his Quakers settled this common- 
wealth of ours, its hills and valleys were the possession of the Dela- 
ware Indians. These original Americans had ritualistic services in the 
worship of the Great Spirit. One of the songs used in such wor- 
ship described the voice of nature. It told of various sounds blending 
into one mighty voice, the roaring of the thunder, and the chirp 
of insects; the crashing of falling trees and the sighing of the leaves 
in the breezes; the clamor of the great waterfall and the whistle of 
the little song bird; all blended into a harmonious voice, which the 
Indians termed “The voice which beautifies the land.” 

There is truth as well as poetry in this concept of the original 
Americans. There is a harmony in the sounds of nature, every one 
of which expresses instinctive and perfected qualities, the very high- 
est expression of which the instrument is capable. 

But mankind embodies no such automatic perfection. If men 
express their very worst qualities and such sounds become the dom- 
inant note, the result is the terrible discord of evil and destruction. 
Such a voice does not beautify, it scourges the land. 

To keep such discord from becoming dominant is the task of 
every truly educated man and woman today. 


Last week I visited the Sesqui-Centennial Exposition in Phila- 
delphia. Unfinished it is as yet, but already it forecasts a triumphant 
celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the signing of the immortal 
Declaration of Independence. 


At the entrance is a mammoth illuminated representation of the 
Old Liberty Bell, the most priceless relic of America. Upon every 
building and in every hall are to be found models of this bell of 
"76. The whole exposition seems to be built around this one 
historic object. 

Now let us think a moment. What makes Old Liberty Bell 
of such unmeasurable value? Is it because it has great money value? 
Its actual intrinsic worth can be measured by a few dollars. Is it 


ie 


because it is a perfect masterpiece of the bell founders craft? It is 
really defective for it was recast twice before it was accepted and 
finally split asunder. Is it because it is the largest or the oldest bell 
in America? No, it can claim no such distinction: 

Liberty Bell is priceless because when the deaf old bellman in 
Philadelphia pulled the rope on that far off Fourth of July, it sounded 
out the highest and best aspirations of patriotic Americans. Its 
brazen tongue spoke for all the brave souls who, in every Colony 
were pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor in the cause 
of liberty and self government. 

There were other voices in the air in that great crisis hour. 
Tories and Royalists shouted their vigorous and venomous protests 
against the folly of independence. Selfish souls who feared that war 
would disturb 'their ease and interfere with their money making, 
roared out their opposition. Reckless ones who welcomed war as an 
adventure shrieked in gleeful anticipation. 

These conflicting sounds canceled themselves, while the dom- 
inant note proclaimed. by the old bell overhead was the voice of 
those who seriously and solemnly declared: “Sink or swim, survive 
or perish, we are for the Declaration. Independence now and Inde- 
pendence forever.” 

I know there are new thought psychologists today who declare 
that the idea of a collective mind or common spirit in a nation is 
an absurdity. They argue that there can only be a collection of 
individual minds and wills, each separate jand distinct from the 
other. 

If that be true, America is a foolish experiment, doomed to 
wreck and ruin for it is founded upon shifting sands and not upon 
rock. America is built upon the faith that free citizens can and 
will cooperate for the common good, despite selfish interests. Some 
one has said that the five gospels of Americanism are the Mayflower 
Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Wash- 
ington’s Farewell Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. 

I believe that the statement is true. Yet when you put those 
great charters into the crucible, the essence of each and all is the 
same—a sublime trust in ‘the people to choose, at whatever cost, 
the better part of the common good. 

The Mayflower Compact is a pledge of co-operation and obedi- 
ence. “In the presence of Almighty God and of one another, we do 
mutually promise to enact such laws as shall be for the good of the 
Colony, to which we do promise willing submission.” 


at es 


What ‘is the Declaration? A challenge to all the world that 
men are created equal, have unalienable rights to life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness and that governments derive their great 
powers from the consent of the governed. Then, most important of 
all, the pledge of co-operation for the national welfare. ‘Trusting 
in Divine Providence, and in the support of this Declaration, we 
mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” 


The Constitution of the United States is but the elaboration 
of one statement. “We the people of the United States in order to 


promote the general welfare, do ordain and establish this Consti- 
tution.” 


What is Washington’s Farewell Address? Only a solemn re- 
commendation from the Father of his Country to his beloved fellow 
citizens to sink individual, sectional, partisan interest in the greater 
glory of the good of all. 

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural is but a cry of faith from a break- 
ing heart that the people would suffer all things necessary in order 
that there “Might be preserved that form and substance of govern- 
ment which shall give to all an unfettered start and a fair chance 
in the race of life.” 

All of these great documents breathe the spirit of confidence 
that the voice of America will be a clear and compelling collective 
voice and will speak for the good of the nation in every trial time. 
That the faith so expressed was not misplaced is proved by the suf- 
fering and sacrifices of Americans from Lexington to the Argonne 
Wood; by the victories of peace from Washington to Coolidge. 

There have been times in our history when there seemed to bk 
a conflict between the interests of those who made up the citizenship 
of the United States at the time and the future welfare of the 
nation. 

Whether the newly established nation should purchase Louisiana, 
the great empire west of the Mississippi in 1803 was one of those 
questions. Senator Plummer of New Hampshire declared in the 
United States Senate that if “This western world be admitted into 
the Union it would destroy the might and influence of the states 
then in existence and compel them to establish separate, independ: 
ent empires. 

Still the voice of America spoke for purchase and the action 
taken made possible the United States of today. The national wel- 
fare took precedence over selfish interest. 

Came a time when Fort Sumpter was fired upon by the forces 


UAL fr 


of Secession. ‘Let the erring sisters go had been the demand, wide- 
spread and vociferous. Pennsylvania, on Mason and Dixon’s Line, 
must suffer |greatly in any war between North and South. The 
easiest, most selfish way would have been to refuse to aid in co- 
ercing the states of the Stars and Bars. But the very day of the 
attack upon Fort Sumpter saw Pennsylvania in action. The House 
and Senate suspended all rules and passed a resolution providing for 
the organization and equipment of the militia and ordering the Ad- 
jutant General to supply all men requested by the President of the 
United States. 


That was three days before Abraham Lincoln called for troops 
and explains why Pennsylvania soldiers were first in Washington for 
the defense of the Capitol. 

Action such as that in Pennsylvania and all the loyal states was 
possible only because there was a body of citizens who would vote 
and work and fight, not for selfish but for national interests. Theirs 
was the voice which indeed beautified the land, drowning out all 
discord and division. 

I want to earnestly urge the graduates of this class of 1926 to 
help create the dominant note of the voice of America and to help 
make it one which will beautify the land in this new, dynamic age 
of ours. 

You here today are a part of that great army of 1,500,000 
young men and women who will this month of June issue forth as 
graduates from American educational institutions. Think of the 
power of such a voice, if it be united and harmonious, to demand 
that America measure up to her full possibilities for justice between 
man and man and between the nations of the world. 

You owe that to America. You would not have the education 
of physical, mental and moral powers without your Government. 
It has always been accepted that in a people’s government the people 
must be enlightened. Because you live in America, you have an 
education in reason, judgment and conscience aimed to make you 
self-governing citizens in a self-governing nation. A democracy can- 
not exist without schools. The faith of the fathers was that you 
would make such use of the schools that you would be worthy sov- 
ereigns in a free Republic. 

You owe it to the men and women of the generation you will 
succeed. In spite of all the mistakes and tragedies of that generation, 
there has been marvellous advancement along many lines. Material 
prosperity, through industrial triumphs, comes to you as an inheri- 


156-« 


tance. Building over a swamp and morass of misunderstanding and 
conflict, that generation has built a bridge to serve you in the onward 
and upward climb. This generation has been like: 


An old man going a lone highway 

Who came in the evening cold and gray 

To a chasm vast and deep and wide. 

The old man crossed in the twilight dim, 

The sullen stream had no fear for him. 

But he turned when safe on the other side 

And built a bridge to spand the tide. 

“Old man,” said a fellow Pilgrim near, 

“You are wasting your time by building here; 
Your journey will end with the ending day, 
You never again will pass this way, 

You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide, 
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?” 
The builder lifted his old gray head. 

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said, 
There followeth after me today 

A youth whose feet must pass this way. 

This chasm which has been as naught to me 
To that fair haired youth may a pitfall be. 
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.” 
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim, 


How may you keep faith with those who comment so con- 
fidently upon your enlightened judgment? 

I believe that the essence of patriotic American service today 
is to be found in the spirit of voluntary co-operation for the common 
good. 

It must be voluntary. The communist who prates about the 
dictatorship of the proletariat talks loudly of freedom but seeks to 
forge the chains of class despotism. The Russian Red Guard is the 
symbol of a liberty which means ruthless, cruel crimes against human 
rights. 


Voluntary co-operation is mutual agreement built upon com- 
mon counsel and expressing the dominant will and voice. 

Through laws enacted by orderly procedure, we may deter- 
mine this dominant voice and I knew of no other way in a Republic 
where the people have power to enforce legislative action. 

Therefore, obedience to Constitution and laws is an essential 


Maher 


to patriotic service today. It is the key to the portal of the future 
welfare of America. 


The challenge of today to you, graduates of 1926, is to make 
certain that the Constitution and the laws be not betrayed and sold 
and that sacred covenants be not made the scoff and sport of crimi 
nals. 


Voluntary co-operation means more than obedience to law 
It means that active determined egorts shall be made by each indi- 
vidual to make the laws embody justice and righteousness. The 
motto of forward-looking Americans today is not “My country, right 
or wrong”; but “My country, if right to keep it right, if wrong to 
make it right.” 


‘No American can perform his obligation of citizenship with- 
out casting his ballot on election day. The vote slacker is as vicious 
as the coward who refuses to aid America in time of war. Every 
election day is a national emergency day. A real emergency exists. 
every time the polls are opened for an expression of the people upon 


those who shall act as their representatives, whether in high office or 
low. 


I heard President Coolidge deliver an address recently at the 
opening session of the Congress of the D. A. R. He stated that 
the indifference of American citizens to their franchise obligations 
is the most menacing sign upon the horizon of Government. In the 
last Presidential election, he pointed out, not one half the eligible 
voters cast their ballots on election day. That is overthrow of the 
fundamental American principle of majority rule. It is govern- 
ment by default, rule by the minority, in whose train many evils 


lurk. 


Just now the newspapers are carrying glowing headlines and 
lengthy articles dealing with the Senatorial investigation into the 
recent Pennsylvania Primary Disclosures are being made of vast 
sums of money expended for the purchase of public office. But 
that is not the most sinister sign upon the horizon. Still more men- 
acing is the fact that with all the efforts made less than half the 
eligible voters of Pennsylvania went to the polls to put their ex- 
pression of judgment and conscience into the ballot box. I sincerely 
hope that every graduate of this class of 1926 will make a com- 
mencement day resolve and keep it—never to allow a primary or 
election to pass without registering the vote which is an American’s 
greatest privilege and obligation. 


wha. 


Ah, my young friends, I wish I could give you some magic 
formula, some patent panacea to resolve all your problems and 
meet all your obligations for the years that lie ahead. 


But there is none to be given. Only through the time tried, 
age tested qualities of faith and work and co-operation shall you 
mount the stairs of the life which means success. 

Faith in a people’s government, the form of government which 
alone justifies God’s great aggregate—the People. There are pessi- 
mistic, cynical voices raised today against democracy. “Keep power 
as far from the people as possible,” they say. ‘Use a sieve and sift 
out delegates who may sift out candidates for public office.” 

Such an attitude is that of the old, shrivelled doubters, never 
of vibrant vouth. 


It seems that the years which whiten the hair often dwarfs 
and narrows the heart and implants fear instead of courage. 

George Westinghouse as a young man caught a vision of the 
airbrake which he believed would transform railroad transportation 
conditions. He visited Cornelius Vanderbilt, President of the New 
York Central Railroad and laid his plans on the great magnate’s 
desk. But Vanderbilt, the pioneer man of faith, had grown old and 
weary. He scarcely deigned to look at the plans and then ordered 
the youthful enthusiast out of his office saying that “he had no 
time to waste on a fool who expected to stop railroad trains with 
wind.” 

Westinghouse returned to Pittsburgh, secured financial help 
and established a mammoth factory to turn out air brakes for every 
railroad in the world. 

Then he too lost his confidence in progress. Came a day when 
two young men from Dayton, Ohio, appeared in his office and 
laid upon his desk their plans for a heavier than air flying machine. 

Westinghouse, grown old and lacking faith, waved them away 
with almost the same expression used by the Vanderbilt of a former 
generation, saying that he “had no time to waste on fools who ex- 
pected to fly like a bird.” 

‘No doubt we are the people and wisdom will die with us,” 
has always been the chant of the self centered, the narrow and the 
pessimistic. As you join the great American community as full 
fledged active members will you not counteract that ancient, base- 
less cry by holding your faith in man’s limitless development, in the 
progress which is the onward stride of Almighty God? 

Besides faith there must be work. You know that efficient 


ples 


study is labor and it requires study to make an efficient, effective 
American citizen. I am almost daily receiving letters from gradu- 
ates of high school and college which prove that the writers do not 
understand at all our dual form of government and the division of 
authority between the states and the nation. 


There is astonishing ignorance among Americans as to the 
actual conduct of government and the schools themselves are much 
to blame. Still, the practical is better than the theoretical. If you 
will study, vote, obey the laws and help to influence others to obey 
them, you will be, “not a hearer of the word only, but a doer also.” 

Faith, work and co-operation are the three Graces of Ameri- 
can citizenship and the greatest of these is co-operation. Your edu- 
cation has been valueless unless it has trained you for teamwork. 

The ability to co-operate with others for a worthy cause is a 
hall mark of the educated man, not only, but of the sane man in 
1926. 

I heard a magazine writer tell of an inspection of an insane 
asylum. Out on the grounds, a mile away from the main buildings, 
he found a little guard, looking after twenty-five insane inmates. 

He watched for some time and then went up to the guard and 
said, ““My friend, what would you do if these insane men should 
get together and come at you all at once. You are not armed and 
you do not even have a club? What would you do if they should get 
together and come at you all at once?” 

The guard responded, “You belong right here, my friend. If 
these fellows could get together with anybody or with any thing 
they wouldn’t be here. That is the trouble with them. That's why 
they’re in an insane asylum.” 

It is a test of sanity to be able to work together. The world 
will perish when men cease to co-operate. I want to point you to 
the highest ideal possible to the mind of man—the team work of 
inaividuals for the good of all. 


Is that a visionary ideal too high for men and women? Some 
cynic has said, “Selfishness is the one motive which determines the 
actions of men.” That is a false doctrine unless perchance by selfish- 
ness is meant the personal satisfaction which comes through service 
of fellow men. 

There is a growing number of those who derive their highest 
pleasure from helping to make others happy. Everyone of these is 
a living proof that noble co-operation is practical and expedient. 

Are you looking for masterpieces? Look about you. There is 


adit WES 


more spiritual life in a living, breathing picture than can be found 
in all the galleries of the world. 


I know masterpieces of simple everyday people which are richer 
and finer than any artist has ever found. 

A little, white haired mother in my district sent her son to the 
defense of Old Glory in the World War. He enlisted in the 
Marines and was one of those who made Belleau Woods an im- 
mortal name in American history. Forty days and nights in the 
front line wore the nerves of himself and comrades to tatters. When 
they were sent back to a rest area unrestraint ran riot. There was 
a brawl in the barracks and a sergeant was shot dead. This lad was 
declared guilty though he tearfully plead his innocence. He was 
sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the penitentiary. 


Then the little mother proved that mother love never falters 
nor fails. 

She told me the story. ‘They blamed my baby,” she reported, 
“But he was a good boy, always good.” 

There were some doubtful points in the testimony and after a 
long time I secured the President’s approval of a reduced sentence 
and then a parole. 

In my private gallery of memory masterpieces there stands out 
this one of that mother welcoming home her boy. Her arms tightly 
holding him, her white head on his shoulder, tenderness in the dim 
old eyes, eager affection in the tear filled young ones. She said to me 
“My boy fought for America and now he’ll work hard for America.” 
No masterpiece on a wall ever showed such lights and shadows. 

Every now and then I see a friend who has been a letter car- 
rier in the postal service for thirty years. He has a wife and five 
children and only for the past two years has his salary been one 
which could be said to provide for an American standard of living. 
Yet this man “looks the whole world in the face for he owes not 
any man.” His children have been educated, three of them being 
college graduates 

My friend’s hobby is children. He belongs to a great fraternal 
organization which maintains a home for orphans. All his spare 
time goes to this home of which he is President. The little ones 
know him as “Daddy” and his presence brings great rejoicing. 

There is a masterpiece in my private gallery of this man whose 
name will never be carved on any roll of fame. I see him surrounded 
by youngsters, for whose safety and happiness he has worked and 
saved and planned. They love him and laugh with him. In his 


——(} |< 


eyes is a glow and gleam and his face is lighted up as though with 
an inner flame. He says, “These orphans, without proper care in 
childhood, might drift into vice and crime. I am happy in seeing 
them get the right start so that they will become good and useful 
American citizens.” The lighting in that picture is indeed a master- 
piece. 

I have another masterpiece in my private gallery. A lad, Louis 
Caton, standing on the stage in Town Hall, New York City, pour- 
ing out with golden voice a flood of melody which charms a note- 
worthy audience of 3,000 persons. 

Leading to that triumphal night is a road, rocky and rugged, 
stretching back to a home of poverty. The boy fights his way up- 
ward from a steel worker’s place in the mills. Brave struggling, un- 
yielding determination, a singing heart! At last he stands before the 
critics and the musical artists and is acclaimed as a new star in the 
firmament of song. That night he said to me, “I am supremely 
happy when the people’s faces light up as I sing.” 

What painting on a gallery wall has more of touching beauty 
and inspiration? 

These masterpieces are not uncommon. Look around you with 
seeing eyes and you will find them: pictures that turn darkness into 
light and gray into gold. 

That little quatrain of Edwin Markham expresses a fundamen- 
tal truth: 


“I built a chimney for a comrade old, 

I did the labor not for hope nor hire, 

And then I travelled on in the winter cold 
Yet all the day I glowed before the fire.” 


Every fundamental of Americanism is based on the belief that 
regard for the rights and welfare of others can and will determine 
the action of individuals. Greater still than that is the faith of the 
Master Christian that men can and will radiate love for God through 
love of fellow men. Christianity is the scientific religion for it em- 
bodies the master passion, love, as the stimulus great enough to 
awaken response from the upward urging spark in the heart of every 
man and woman. 

If you will dedicate yourselves to the great cause of the com- 
mon good, I can promise you a place in any army destined to cer 
tain victory. All history records the one fact that for injustice and 
oppression and tyranny, doomsday comes at last. 


ee 


In March, 1919, I visited Coblenz, the bridgehead of the Am- 
erican Army in Germany. I saw Ehreinbritstein, the Gibraltar of 
Prussia, on the lordly river Rhine. 

It was an armored fortress on an armored mountain. Above it 
was a staff, where waved an emblem of hope and confidence to 
every believer in the divine rights of the people, and an emblem of 
warning to every believer in one man rule anywhere—the Star Span- 
gled Banner of America. 

Graduates of Grove City College, I bring you a challenge to 
enlist in the Army of the Common Good whose marching song of 
progress shall be sung in a voice which beautifies the land. I promise 
you that the battle will result in victory, that it will help to give 
American statesmanship without treason; legislation without lawless- 
ness; business without brutality; steps upward to the green gardens of 
brotherhood instead of downward to the jungle of selfish greed; the 
wisdom which is ‘better than the merchandise of silver and the gain 
thereof than fine gold. 

And I submit to you, Graduates of Grove City College, that 
there are ideals well worth your while in this throbbing, dynamic, 
radio active year of 1926. 


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